'Pine Trees, Tractors, and Academics' - Meet Clint Lum, PhD Student at the University of Illinois

I was born in Pearland, Texas, which was a relatively small town about equal parts between Houston and Galveston. While my immediate family and I lived in Pearland, much of my childhood was spent in Northeast Texas where my grandparents own a relatively small (by Texas’ standards, especially small) ranch. My grandfather (Papaw) worked in the oil fields most of his adult life, and right about the time I came along, he and my grandmother (Mimi) bought the land to run cattle on for ‘retirement’ (ranching is anything but we call retirement). Mimi and Papaw were quite fond of their new grandson (me) and this, coupled with their need of help on the ranch, gave my parents good reason to travel to the ranch whenever the chance presented itself.

Most days at the ranch looked quite similar, Papaw would shuffle into my room well before the sun had risen, "Hey Hotshot [his name for me], it’s time to get up. You want some breakfast?" I would usually respond by jumping out of bed and scampering into the kitchen to where breakfast (usually eggs, biscuits and fig-preserves) and Mimi were waiting. After a bite to eat and chatting with Mimi for a while, Papaw and I were off to work, although at the time I had not a clear grasp of the distinction between work and play, especially when that work was done from a tractor and in the woods, as this felt like play to me. In fact, it was due to Papaw’s persistence in bringing me along to work that I spoke my first word: tractor.

Afternoons at the ranch usually consisted of a nap underneath the ceiling fan in the living room. Papaw and I would come in some time around lunch, eat, and then take naps. Actually, being so tired from the heat, these were the types of naps that C.S. Lewis said took you as opposed to you taking them. After taking (or being taken by) our naps we would head back out to run fences, feed cows, or tinker down at the barn, and come dark, we were inside having a shower (much to young me’s chagrin) and soon thereafter sitting at the dining room table with Mimi where sometimes bickering would ensue (but not the hateful kind, the playful kind shared between friends). After dinner Mimi, Papaw and I sat in the living room while I watched something along the line of Scooby-Doo while Mimi read a mystery novel and/or western, and Papaw read what appeared to me to be the same book every night, but I learned when I was older it was a leather case he put around each book as he read them (I have a hunch they were romance novels and he wanted no one to see!). Some nights I woke up as Papaw carried me to bed. "Hey Hotshot, it's time to get up. You want some breakfast?" And the day started over...

This is all very idyllic and stereotypically Texan. I mention part of my childhood because it has profoundly influenced me insofar as it has brought me to appreciate open green spaces whether they be Mimi and Papaw’s ranch or Carle Park here in Urbana-Champaign. Places like the pine forest on our ranch and Carle Park offer values to those fortunate enough to experience them that are difficult to express in ways that are most salient in contemporary society, namely economic. This is what has, in part, motivated me to study for my Ph.D. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I am currently a graduate student and I am particularly concerned with helping individuals see the value of living in ways that are environmentally responsible. There are several difficulties with the line of research I have set myself down. Most notably, is the uphill battle with the general discourse surrounding value itself. How are we to value things? Likely, "value" engenders categories of dollars and cents or stocks and bonds,  but historically this has not been the only way things have been valued. Pushing against these norms often feels like walking into a stiff wind.

It is therefore one of my goals for my studies here at the University of Illinois to better communicate the value of parks and the natural environment as a whole. I do not mean to reach these means by become anti-economy, it is important to note. The market is a great thing in its proper place. Rather, I hope to continue to build on work that has been done in the past regarding the value of recreation, and perhaps even add in a thing or two of my own.

Clinton S. Lum

Ph.D. Student

Dept. of Recreation, Sport and Tourism

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign