0:00

Hi friends. It's Ray. If you're

0:02

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0:04

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0:06

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0:08

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week on making, you'll hear stories about

0:30

the formative years of some of the world's

0:32

most famous figures, including

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Rihanna, Serena Williams,

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Jesse Jackson, and so many

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So go ahead. Find making wherever

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you.

1:04

The the caged doors,

1:06

any that were that I had caged myself

1:09

in, were flung open. there's

1:11

nothing like it when someone says, you know,

1:13

be you, do you. And

1:16

then you're like, wait, really? I'm

1:18

talking to Drew Lannum in his home office

1:20

in South Carolina. It's raining and

1:22

we can hear the rain falling on this tin

1:24

roof. Recently, Drew

1:27

won the prestigious MacArthur Genius

1:29

grant. It's eight hundred

1:31

thousand dollars paid out over five

1:33

years with no strings attached.

1:36

It's only given to highly creative

1:38

people to help them with their future

1:40

creative work. in anything like

1:42

art, music, literature, math,

1:44

or even science. The

1:47

foundation just selects you because

1:49

you're a rock star. Some of the past

1:51

winners include Coramack McCarthy, Donna

1:54

Hussey Coates, Lynn Midwell Miranda,

1:56

and even NK Jemison. And

1:58

like everyone on that list,

2:01

Drew is a creative powerhouse,

2:03

and his primary area

2:04

of expertise is birds. Just

2:06

this very sweet melting song, this

2:11

Drew is an ornithologist. And

2:13

his love for birds led him down a

2:15

path to get his doctorate, do research,

2:18

write a memoir, write poetry, teach,

2:20

and on and on. But what's

2:22

hard to believe about this award winning

2:25

scientist is that he almost didn't

2:27

study birds

2:27

at all. Part of

2:29

my my story has

2:32

been one of living

2:35

life Not

2:36

necessarily for myself, but oftentimes

2:39

for others, here I

2:41

was a black kid good at math

2:43

and science The

2:45

algorithm was if

2:47

black and good at math

2:49

and science, then engineer.

2:52

I I felt choiceless.

2:56

I felt trapped. Really

2:59

dark thoughts at times about

3:01

my life. And

3:04

so I have always been appreciative

3:06

of chickens because it was a bird

3:08

that saved my life.

3:13

I'm doctor Ray Win and

3:16

this is a different kind of nature show.

3:18

A podcast all about the human

3:21

drama of saving animals. This

3:23

season, I wanna share my story.

3:25

But I also

3:28

wanna introduce you to the other amazing

3:30

wildlife scientists out there Some

3:32

of my friends who study hyenas, work

3:35

with lizards,

3:36

and even track sharks.

3:38

The animals we study are great,

3:41

but who we are as people and

3:43

how that affects our work is

3:45

just as interesting. and we're

3:47

gonna talk all about it.

3:49

This is going wild.

4:00

As the rain falls in South Carolina, Drew

4:02

tells me all about how his job as

4:04

an ornithologist is to save

4:06

birds. He wants to understand

4:08

why they're declining and try and stop

4:11

that decline. And the whole story

4:13

begins when Drew was a little

4:14

boy. It starts

4:17

in Edgefield, South Carolina on

4:19

a family farm land that

4:21

had been in my family probably

4:23

since the early nineteen hundreds.

4:26

Drew grew up on a couple hundred

4:28

acres full of forest fields,

4:30

creeks, and springs. And he was

4:32

surrounded by wildlife like foxes,

4:34

field mice, hawk, andrends. Now,

4:36

if you know me, you know, I was raised as

4:38

a city girl. So, you know, I saw pigeons

4:41

and heard construction noises. but

4:44

drew heard prairie warblowers and drank

4:46

water from a spring. And some of

4:48

the little things that I took for granted in the

4:50

city, you know, like fast food,

4:52

Well, Drew had a different

4:53

experience. If we

4:55

wanted french fries, what would happen was

4:58

my sister and I would go to

5:00

the garden? and

5:01

we would dig some potatoes,

5:03

potatoes

5:05

right, out of the ground, wash them,

5:07

scrub them, peel them, and

5:09

then she'd slice them and fry them

5:11

in a cast iron pan on the stove.

5:14

You

5:14

know, and that's a process of what maybe I don't

5:16

know an hour. That

5:17

was fast food.

5:23

Magicly, soil

5:26

and sun and water have turned those

5:28

potato slips as we call

5:30

them into potatoes. And

5:32

it was like magic, but it was it was

5:34

magic that you could explain. And

5:37

then it was magic you could eat.

5:39

Occasionally,

5:44

my father would kill a rabbit, and

5:46

we knew that

5:47

Our meat had lived. Most

5:50

of the fish we ate came out of the creek.

5:52

So

5:52

our catch and release was always

5:54

in a pan of hot grease.

5:57

Growing up on his family's land,

5:59

Drew was just a boy free

6:01

to be himself. And of

6:03

all the things on his land, it

6:05

was birds that truly captured

6:07

his heart.

6:09

I

6:11

was in love with songbirds

6:14

and soaring hawks.

6:19

I can remember when I would be in the

6:21

back seat of our parents car driving

6:23

along, my sister,

6:26

Julia, showed me how to take a

6:28

mirror when we were sitting by the window

6:30

and you could take that mirror, right,

6:32

and angle it so that as

6:34

you drove, all you would see was

6:36

sky and the tree. and

6:39

it was like flying. As

6:41

a kid I wanted to fly, I

6:44

was obsessed with with flight. I

6:46

mean, I've always loved air craft

6:49

and would put together model airplanes

6:51

all the time and studied aircraft

6:54

and pilots and pretended

6:56

to fly planes around the house.

7:00

So birds could do that without mirrors

7:02

or tricks. No. They

7:04

could just pick themselves

7:06

up at a whim and

7:08

fly.

7:12

Drew's parents were scientists. He

7:14

would go through the encyclopedias on their

7:16

shelf and learn about all different types

7:19

of birds. he loved watching

7:21

birds and listening to birds

7:23

and learning about birds. So

7:25

it makes sense that truth thought about studying

7:27

zoology or or mythology for

7:29

school, but his

7:31

parents had other plans for him.

7:33

I'm one of the things that my grandmother

7:37

instilled in me from earliest

7:40

youth was to obey my

7:43

mother and my father I mean, biblically,

7:45

that's supposed to mean a longer

7:47

life. At

7:48

that time, there was a growing emphasis in

7:50

education on stem, which stands

7:52

for science technology, engineering, and

7:54

math. ENDRA's parents saw

7:56

an opportunity for him there, so they

7:58

pushed him to be an engineer. And

8:00

like his grandmother had taught him,

8:02

he obeyed and ended up

8:04

going to a couple of engineering camps

8:06

in high school.

8:07

you got to drop eggs off of buildings

8:10

and and

8:12

build bridges. I mean,

8:14

that very sexy part

8:16

of engineering where you're designing

8:19

stuff and building it and you're testing

8:21

it.

8:23

Drew even got a paid engineering

8:25

internship while in high school.

8:27

And

8:27

the money was good,

8:30

but then it it wasn't what

8:33

was at my heart.

8:35

It was again what

8:37

others had sort of set forth

8:39

for me. and this

8:41

sort of expectation and here I was a

8:43

black kid good at math and

8:45

science. The

8:47

algorithm was if

8:49

black and good at math and

8:51

science, then engineer. And

8:53

then there was yet

8:56

another turning point in Drew's path that pushed

8:58

him further away from birds.

9:00

Drew learned he was in the running for the

9:02

prestigious DuPont scholarship

9:05

award. a scholarship that would give him

9:07

a full ride to any program in

9:09

the US as long as he

9:11

studied engineering. And

9:13

on top of it, it guaranteed employment

9:16

with the DuPont Corporation

9:18

beyond that. So When

9:20

you're presented with that kind of thing, that kind of

9:23

offer, it's one of those things that you can't

9:25

refuse. Or at least

9:27

that's what everybody tells you.

9:29

I was hoping

9:31

I probably prayed that

9:33

I wouldn't get it because

9:36

I did not want to be an

9:38

engineer. I could not see myself

9:40

as an engineer.

9:46

Drew

9:46

got the scholarship. It was an

9:49

amazing opportunity, but for

9:51

something he had no interest

9:53

I stood. And

9:55

I

9:55

made sort of a last minute decision

9:57

on

9:58

Clemson

9:59

University. And

10:03

I was in engineering for

10:05

three and a half years. And

10:07

I was doing okay, but just

10:10

getting by. but I wasn't

10:12

dropping eggs off of buildings and I

10:14

wasn't building bridges. It was

10:16

doing this

10:18

really important, but

10:20

but now to me kind of

10:22

really against my my

10:25

principle of thinking I was working a

10:27

nuclear weapons

10:28

facility.

10:32

This

10:32

engineering path Drew was on was

10:35

so far from studying birds. And

10:37

he had well meeting people in his life

10:39

telling him that once he was successful.

10:42

He could still study birds on the

10:44

side, but Drew wanted birds at

10:46

the center. And

10:48

so every day I would go in, I would look

10:50

I'd have this big calendar and I

10:52

would mark the day off. I

10:54

couldn't wait to mark an x

10:56

through every day. And

10:59

every year, I would I would beg my

11:01

scholarship sponsors and

11:04

beg is the the proper word

11:06

to allow me to change my major to something

11:08

that was closer to what I loved,

11:10

biomechanical engineer, something else.

11:13

And every year, they

11:16

refused. And so

11:18

I felt increasingly cornered,

11:21

increasingly resentful, and

11:23

and and

11:25

increasingly like my life was

11:27

not in my own hands. And

11:29

on

11:29

top of all of that, right before

11:32

he got the scholarship, Drew's father

11:34

passed away. It was a

11:36

difficult time for him and his family,

11:38

and it felt impossible for Drew to

11:40

choose a path that would ultimately let

11:42

his parents down.

11:44

After

11:44

my father died, I took to wearing

11:46

this pair of shoes that he had

11:48

worn. Literally,

11:51

I I stepped into this

11:53

pair of lace

11:56

up Oxfords that my father

11:58

had

11:58

worn the

12:00

day he died. And

12:03

one of his favorite pair of shoes and

12:05

I wore those shoes for

12:07

three years.

12:14

I took this role of people

12:16

pleaser and trying to fill

12:18

the shoes of this

12:20

person who I greatly admired And

12:23

so I had to outgrow

12:25

those shoes, both literally

12:27

and figuratively to

12:30

to really begin to follow

12:32

my heart.

12:38

and one day something happened.

12:40

Where Drew realized he couldn't

12:43

deny his heart any longer.

12:45

He went home. back to

12:47

the land on land where he grew up on,

12:49

back to his father's land.

12:53

I

12:53

wasn't well mentally at the time

12:55

either you know, in

12:58

and out of of

13:00

depression and really

13:03

dark thoughts at times

13:05

about my life.

13:07

Drew's father had died without a

13:09

will and the land was divided amongst

13:12

his father's siblings. Much of

13:14

it had been clear cut for timber and

13:16

in some ways it was destroyed. But

13:19

while Drew was there walking in

13:21

that once familiar land, where he used

13:23

to roam wild and free.

13:25

He heard something.

13:30

and

13:30

there was this this one bird, this prairie

13:32

warbler,

13:36

little yellow bird with black markings,

13:38

but this little bird you know,

13:41

three and a half, four inch

13:43

long bird was singing

13:47

from a sapling in the middle

13:49

of this clear cut where

13:51

the land had been ravaged.

13:53

And I remember hearing that bird

13:56

sing I

13:58

remember stopping as I

14:00

was leaving and this bird was singing

14:03

and it it it lit a

14:06

different fire in me. I

14:09

knew that I had to find my way

14:11

back to that bird and to

14:13

other birds.

14:19

To hear

14:19

just how Drew made his way back to

14:22

birds, with the help of a chicken?

14:24

Stay tuned after the

14:26

break.

14:30

Here

14:35

in

14:35

the last archive, I've been trying to figure

14:37

out what happened to choose. I've been telling

14:39

stories about how we know what we know. And

14:41

why it seems sometimes lately is if

14:43

we don't know anything at all. but

14:45

I am done with the problems of truth. I

14:48

want solutions. The

14:50

season of The Last Archive is all about

14:53

common knowledge. Is that kind

14:55

of knowledge still possible? I

14:57

tried to find out. Coming

14:58

soon. Listen

15:02

to the

15:02

last archive wherever you get your

15:04

podcasts. Hi folks.

15:05

It's Ray. As a Californian, the

15:08

issue of the fire crisis is so

15:10

important to me. And even if you don't

15:12

live in the state, you or someone you

15:14

know is likely impacted by

15:16

it. which is why I want to

15:18

tell you about the next installment of

15:21

the Big Disaster Podcast

15:23

series from our friends over at LAist

15:25

Studios. The big

15:27

disaster, the big burn,

15:29

provides you with a wildfire survival

15:31

guide that includes not just tangible

15:33

safety tips, but hope for our

15:35

future. Host and science

15:37

reporter Jacob Margolis goes on a

15:39

journey to figure out how we

15:41

got here. why we keep

15:43

screwing things up and what we can do to

15:45

survive and even thrive

15:47

while the world around us

15:49

burns. Find the big

15:51

disaster, the big burn,

15:53

wherever you get your

15:54

podcasts.

16:04

After that moment back on his family's

16:07

land, being captivated by the

16:09

prairie warbler, Drew had

16:11

a new sense of clarity. He

16:13

decided engineering was not

16:15

for him. He went back to Clemson

16:17

and immediately quit his major.

16:19

He was not going to be an

16:21

engineer. I

16:22

lost the scholarship immediately. Drew

16:25

didn't have the money to pay for school,

16:27

so he made a desperate last ditch

16:30

attempt to be with the birds. I

16:31

knew that if if

16:34

I went into the military, they would pay for

16:37

school. And so

16:39

I went to the recruiter's

16:41

office And at the time,

16:43

there was this movie called Top Gun.

16:46

And and I thought, oh,

16:48

well, you know, I'll be a fighter pilot

16:50

I'll fly off the decks of aircraft carriers.

16:53

In that way, I'll fly and and

16:55

I'll escape some of this.

16:58

And, yeah, that would have been a choice that I

17:00

made, but then suddenly I'm having to

17:02

follow someone else's orders as

17:06

as work. But

17:06

here's where another bird came in

17:09

and saved Drew. He

17:11

was one day away. One

17:14

day away. from signing his commitment

17:16

to the military. When he walked

17:18

out to his mailbox and they're

17:20

waiting for him was a

17:22

letter. a letter

17:22

that I almost tossed.

17:24

It was

17:25

from Amick Farms

17:30

And I remember opening this

17:32

letter and reading it, and it was a

17:34

scholarship from

17:35

a chicken producer.

17:37

And this

17:39

scholarship originally was supposed to

17:41

go to someone from a particular

17:43

county who was majoring and

17:46

poultry science. Well, if

17:48

that person didn't exist, then there was this

17:50

whole litany of people then that it

17:52

could go to. My position

17:55

was probably seven or eight on

17:57

this list. This

17:59

scholarship fell to me. And

18:00

so I I

18:02

have always been appreciative of

18:05

chickens in this way because it was a bird

18:07

that saved my life.

18:16

If not for that scholarship, I

18:18

would not have had the

18:20

money to pursue my

18:22

passion. Yeah. Maybe I would have taken

18:24

out student loans that that probably would have

18:26

been a thing. But, you know, my

18:28

mother had to cosign for the one

18:30

semester I had, and I

18:32

hated asking for her help.

18:34

So when they took that scholarship

18:36

like they did from

18:38

me, it was really motivation

18:41

and it quite frankly, it's been motivation to this

18:43

day when I'm successful at

18:45

something. In some ways,

18:47

I yeah. People had

18:49

a certain kind of faith in me, I guess,

18:51

that I could be an engineer, but

18:53

they also turned a deaf

18:55

ear to who it was that I wanted

18:57

to be. So that's

18:59

a chip I don't think I

19:01

carry very many chips on my shoulder,

19:03

but that's one of the chips. You

19:05

know, that there were lots of

19:07

people who just thought they knew

19:09

better for me than I knew for

19:11

myself. No one asked

19:13

me how I saw myself at

19:15

the time. And not that others didn't

19:18

want good for

19:20

me, but their good

19:22

wasn't my good. For

19:24

Drew, this poultry scholarship

19:27

freed him up to follow his heart.

19:29

He studied ornithology, got

19:32

his doctorate, he taught he did all

19:34

sorts of research to save birds and

19:36

understand their habitats and

19:38

migration patterns. and he

19:40

started to realize that he was

19:42

free, not just a study birds,

19:44

but to do whatever his

19:46

heart desired. so he began

19:48

to write poems,

19:50

articles, even a

19:51

memoir. I think

19:52

it's important for writers to declare

19:54

why they write And so I I

19:56

wrote this essay about why. Right? And

19:58

and one of the things that I say in

20:01

it is that as I talk about

20:03

birds, as I don't just write

20:05

about birds, but I write four birds, and

20:07

I write two birds, that

20:09

I have to also write

20:11

about the

20:14

context in which we all live.

20:16

So in

20:16

twenty thirteen, Drew wrote an

20:18

article for Orion Magazines

20:22

Nine rules for

20:25

the black bird watcher.

20:27

Number one,

20:28

be prepared to be confused

20:30

with the other black burger.

20:33

Number two, carry your

20:36

binoculars and three forms of

20:38

identification at all. Number

20:40

five, Blackbirds. Any

20:43

Blackbirds are your birds. You'll need the

20:45

photo ID to convince the cops

20:47

FBI homeland security

20:49

and the flashlight toting security guard that

20:52

you're not a terrorist or

20:54

escaped combat. Croes and their

20:56

kin are among the smartest things

20:59

with feathers and wings.

21:02

They're

21:02

largely ignored because of their ubiquity

21:04

and often persecuted because

21:07

of stereotype and missed

21:10

understanding. Sounds like

21:13

profiling to me.

21:15

In twenty

21:16

twenty, seven years

21:18

after he wrote that article, his writing career got a

21:21

huge boost because the

21:23

article went viral. It

21:25

was the most popular article for

21:27

Orion that year. Drew was on the radio,

21:30

on television, and he realized

21:32

he didn't need to write on the side

21:34

anymore. Writing became

21:35

a core part of his work.

21:37

He wrote

21:37

other art circles, like the

21:40

nine new revelations for the

21:42

Black American

21:42

bird watcher. Revelation

21:45

number one, hooded

21:47

warblers are lucky. They can

21:50

wear hoodies and no one asks

21:52

questions or feels threatened. Revelation

21:55

number two, no one

21:57

denies the eye bending beauty of

21:59

a painted

21:59

bunting by saying, I

22:02

don't see color. Revelation

22:04

number four, why are some

22:06

emigrant accepted and others not.

22:09

Just asking for a European

22:12

starling.

22:16

And

22:21

now,

22:21

Drew has yet another reason

22:23

to believe that he chose the right

22:26

path. This time, it isn't a

22:28

poultry scholarship or a viral

22:30

article, but the MacArthur Genius

22:33

Grant Eight hundred

22:36

thousand dollars to use however

22:38

he pleases. He doesn't have

22:40

to join the military or

22:42

make nuclear weapons. He doesn't have

22:44

to follow anyone else's orders.

22:47

He only has to follow his

22:50

heart. which will always lead him back to his

22:52

love for birds. And

22:55

whether it's creating art, watching

22:58

birds, collaborating on

23:00

conservation work no matter

23:02

what he chooses to do. Drew

23:04

says that being supported is

23:06

a powerful

23:07

feeling. discovering this wide

23:10

open space again of

23:12

desire and discovery and

23:14

others who would support me in

23:16

it. There's nothing like that.

23:18

There's there's nothing like it when someone says, you

23:20

know, be you, do you.

23:36

You

23:43

just listen to going wild with

23:46

doctor Ray WinGrant. If you wanna

23:48

support us, you can follow going wild on your

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favorite podcast listening app.

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And while you're there, please leave us a

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review. It really helps. You

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more information on all of our guesses

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season on each episode's show

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Video app. This

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episode of Going Wild, was

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hosted by me, Dr. Ray

24:23

Winngren. Production by Jacob Lewis,

24:25

Caroline Har de Luxano, Danielle

24:27

Brosa, Nathan Toby, and Great

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Feeling Studios. Editing by

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Rachel Aranoff, sound designed by Carrie

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at Harman. Danielle Brosa is the

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digital lead, and Fred Kaufman is the executive

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producer

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for nature. Art for

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this podcast was created by Ariana Bowler's

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and Karen Brazil. Special

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thanks to a management, Lance

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Robertson, Jane Lisey, Chelsea sat camp and

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Karen Hope. Going wild

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is a new podcast by PBS

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Nature. Nature is an award

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winning series created by the W NET

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Group and made possible by all of

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you. Funding for this podcast

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broadcasting, and

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PBS.