Marc Sapir

I'll Fly Away

Stories about Amazing Disabled Elders by Marc Sapir

I’ll Fly Away invites readers to delve into the intimate narratives of 40 extraordinary elders, revealing their profound stories of resilience and the vibrant spirit that often persists in the twilight years. This collection not only highlights the challenges faced by aging individuals but also champions the beauty and dignity of every life story.

“A collection of wonderful real-life stories on aging. Dr. Sapir vividly portrays a complex series of human emotions, struggles, and relationships.”
—Thomas Irungu MD, MPH, medical director Sentara Health Plans, VA

“Could the lives of 40 disabled oldsters in a geriatric program make interesting reading? ‘Interesting’ is an understatement. These stories are fascinating.”
—Anthony Somkin MD, medical director RotaCare West Contra Costa

Marc Sapir, a retired primary care, geriatric, and public health physician, is an essayist and political activist. He was the first Medical Director of the Center for Elders’ Independence for disabled elders for 9 years. He also previously worked for United Farm Workers and was a panel member of the Mad as Hell Doctors for Single Payer Health Care. A graduate of Brandeis University (BA) and Stanford Medical School (MD), he also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health (MPH) epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley.

He is the author of five plays and writes fiction, poetry, and music. He recently published a memoir, Deja Vu with Quixotic Delusions of Grandeur (May, 2024), and his writing has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Berkeley Daily Planet, the Palo Alto Times, the Stanford Daily, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Epidemiology, and more. He lives in Berkeley, CA.

Deja Vu with Quixotic Delusions of Grandeur

A Memoir by Marc Sapir

“On a balmy October afternoon in 1971 I found myself on my back on a street in South San Francisco, my left shoulder blade pinned to the curb. I had tripped....(and) there was a lanky young man with an unsettling ferocity in his eyes standing over me, pointing a handgun at my face...”

Though this typical public-schooled suburban American kid becomes a doctor with the Cesar Chavez-led United Farm Workers movement, the opening lines of Marc Sapir’s memoir reveal a life of disorderly chaos. From a radical disruptive anti-war medical student at Stanford, Sapir became a Public Health official, then accidentally first medical director of an all-inclusive team-based health program for disabled elders, caring for, writing and editing books about (and by) those elders. He coordinated development of Berkeley’s high school health center and later operationalized a methodology in public opinion polling that explains systematic deception in opinion research. Labeling himself a failed communist, the grandfather of 6 and playwright battles for working class egalitarian ideals while wandering around like a dement. Sapir inserts commentaries on social de-evolution, language, literature and cosmology, distilled through living during the holocaust and exposure to Oliver Sacks’ oeuvre and support. Youngster Marc dreamed of composing music and writing but, being a “good Jewish kid”, he caved to parental pressure and became “my son the doctor,”...in the beginning.

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