Alvin Stillman graduated from a Wayne State deli to San Francisco's Cafe Babar.

Endless Summer

BARBARA PARKER RATNER

Special to The Jewish News

C

alifornia — The land of milk
and honey . . . or is it the
land of fruits and nuts?
Detroiters began the trek out west
in the 1940s. What led them to
their new homes?
Stuart Lester (Mumford, 1965)
has been in San Diego since
graduating from law school. Lester
is convinced that San Diego is
paradise. With only two years to go
to realize complete financial
security, Lester decided that "this
kind of stressful work was not what
I wanted out of life. I want to be
able to enjoy the fruits of my labor."
With a business associate,
Lester then bought a sailboat and

spent 4 years sailing around the
world, returning only "when I ran
out of money." Since his return,
Lester has changed his life style.
He claims he is "no longer
working as hard as I could be. I am
no longer looking to expand my
law practice. I pick and choose my
cases, even though sometimes I get
caught up in feeling sorry for
clients and take cases I should
not?'
Lester says he is "working
smart, not hard."
Lester claims that a nightmare
helped convince him to move to
California. "I was going downtown
to a large Detroit law firm, brown
bag in hand, day after day, year
after year, nine to five, with no
change in sight. I came home every

night to the suburbs, to a wife and
1.9 children?'
A good friend told him years
ago that "once you get that big job
there is no quitting. You work hard
for that job, that house, that car,
that vacation, for the rest of your
life. You can't afford to quit?'
That was enough for Lester,
and California became the
residence of choice for the young
barrister. San Diego's "eternal
summers" made his choice easy.
Lester does find a few
drawbacks to life in San Diego, in-
cluding the fact that professional
people make less in their chosen
fields in San Diego than in Detroit.
He claims, "I do not miss the
change of seasons, as any season is

Continued on Page 29

Leah Chafetz

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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