By Deborah Craig– Sally Gearhart was a toweringly brilliant woman I encountered quite by accident. I teach Public Health at SF State and am a filmmaker too. While helping LGBTQ public health expert Mickey Eliason with a study of lesbian health, I met so many perceptive and funny women that I began a short documentary about lesbians and aging. Mickey’s collaborator Penny Sablove mentioned an octogenarian she knew still living on women’s land in Northern California and cutting her own firewood with a chainsaw. Naturally, I zoomed up to meet her. At this point, I knew little about Sally other than the chainsaw anecdote. But I trekked to Willits with my camerawoman Silvia Turchin in the summer of 2014 to find out more. Though 83, Sally kept us on our toes. She expounded on topics from aging to feminism to gay rights to environmentalism. She recited poetry and prose. She took us with her beloved dog Bodhi on a walk in the local woods—where we scrambled to keep up with her. And we toured the land in her signature battered Isuzu Jeep, an exciting and mildly hair-raising ride with Sally at the helm.