April 23, 1995

IT'S a long way from Wall Street to the narrow mountain roads leading here. But Morgan Stanley & Company knows the route all too well. The fanciest firm in finance, Morgan Stanley is embroiled in a messy lawsuit that boils down to one simple question: Who is to blame when state investment funds embrace risk and lose big -- the brokers who became rich on the state business or the state itself. The case, to be decided shortly by the State Supreme Court, has implications for Orange County, Calif., and other municipal finance calamities. The case here began in 1983, when Kathryn M. Lester, a young secretary-turned-trader, was put in charge of West Virginia's $2.2 billion municipal investment fund. Supervising her were a flock of politically connected bosses, several of whom ended up discredited or in jail. Her formal training was in home economics, but with a mind for numbers and a stomach for aggressive trades, Ms. Lester quickly turned the sleepy fund into the most successful in the nation. She made billion-dollar bets and earned millions for her state, displaying a "Working Girl" savvy in her wheelings and dealings.

TWENTY men and women gathered recently at the Lotus King restaurant in Eastchester to define Americanism. Although the Chinese restaurant is one of America's most common settings, the people gathered that day were not among the broadest component of America's culture. They were members of the Polymath Society and the Scarsdale/ Westchester Phi Beta Kappa Association, whose membership is slightly more than 100. Dr. Myron R. Schoenfeld, president of the Polymath Society and a Scarsdale internist and cardiologist, said the society was begun shortly after he and his wife, Dr. Gloria Edis, a pediatrician, dined with a group of friends in May 1989.

ONE evening last December, I found myself sitting on the floor of the West Side Montessori School gymnasium with 50 other mothers and fathers, gathering survival tips for one of the most notorious passages of Manhattan parenthood. We were deep into the annual nursery-school hunting season (September through March). The school's director was offering advice on getting through the preschool admissions process with our self-respect intact.

A LOT has been said about Kirk Kerkorian, not much of it kind, since the mysterious billionaire moved to gobble up the Chrysler Corporation. But no one has faulted his impeccable sense of timing. On the morning he announced his intent, much of the world's automotive press was digging into soggy scrambled eggs at the breakfast preview of the New York Auto Show. They were hungry for news, and news they got.

IT was always a dream of mine to live on a boat and sail away into the sunset," said Kenny Cloutier. "And now I'm living it." For the last four years, Mr. Cloutier's home has been his 41-foot, twin-mast Island Trader. In the winter, the sailboat is tied to the dock at Pilots Point Marina in Westbrook, where Mr. Cloutier rents an office and works by day as aland acquisition consultant. By night, he is on the boat. In the late spring, summer and early fall, Mr. Cloutier is free to chase sunsets while keeping his slip at the marina to return for supplies and to continue his work.