Message from the Chair

• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 4
• Publication year: 2015
• Author: By Michael E. Whitaker

Message From the Chair

By Michael E. Whitaker

Michael E. Whitaker is a Judge of the Superior Court in and for the County of Los Angeles. Michael received his B.A., with Distinction, in Political Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and obtained his J.D. from the University of Oregon, where he served as a Managing Editor for the Oregon Law Review. He also served on the City of Culver City Civil Service Commission from 2006-2014.

Summer—A Time for Endings and Beginnings

"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer" F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I don't know about you, but I couldn't wait for summer to arrive when I was a kid. It meant not only no school, but long days for what would become lasting memories. No school meant the end of the school year, and sometimes an end to relationships forged over the school year—relationships among peers and with teachers. Summers also meant a time for renewal and exploration, and a time to imagine what life would bring once those long days in the hot sun were over. And, with the close of every summer, school would inevitably start in the fall, and the cycle of forging relationships with peers and teachers would begin anew.

Of course, truth be told, I grew up in Hawaii, so the sun was always shining and the hot weather never quite went away. Yes, in Hawaii, "summer weather" is always present. However, it is not the weather I am alluding to. It is the emotion or feeling that summers present. Summers symbolize the promise of yesterday fulfilled and represent the promise of tomorrow waiting to be realized.

The summers of my youth are a distant past. My summers of today—as I assume for most of you—are not the same as the ones I experienced as a kid. Long gone are days riding my bike for hours with no destination or purpose in mind. And long gone are the days when I could find solace and happiness without ever spending a dime—all it took was a little imagination and a sense of adventure. Despite the decades that have come and gone, I can still summon the feelings I experienced during the summers of my youth as if they happened yesterday.

My summers of today are still a time when things come to an end and things begin. With that, summer has come to the State Bar Labor and Employment Law Section. For our Section, it means that members of the Executive Committee who...