It is with deep respect and love that I say goodbye to one of the most important men I have ever been privileged to know and count as a mentor. Decades ago it was suggested to me that I should take someone I considered a hero to lunch. The person I called was Dr. Clum, the president of my alma mater. I was probably 35 at the time and am almost twice that now, but I remember it well. He embodied what it was to be an honorable human being. When I was a student at Life Chiropractic College-West he would get up onstage during Friday seminars and say such things as, “I like to imagine that I am in this world to adjust one person, and one person only, but I won’t know who that is until I get up to the Pearly Gates. When I do, I don’t want to find out that it was the garbage man I gave the shortened visit to because he was smelly.” I would remember that with many an inconvenient patient as the years went by. He also said that we should all be able to adjust someone on a stump in the woods. I knew he meant it metaphorically but I took it literally and it actually came in handy on a few occasions. Once he told the parable of three masons all working on the same construction site, and a man came by and asked the first mason what he was doing. The man answered, “Earning a paycheck”. He asked the second man the same question and he answered, “Building a wall”. He asked the last man what he was doing and he answered, “I am building a cathedral”. Dr. Clum, as president of Life Chiropractic College – West inspired all of us to be builders of cathedrals. I entered chiropractic college thinking I would be a musculoskeletal pain doctor. I left school a doctor who knew I could help release and balance the vital life force within my patients allowing their bodies to heal themselves.

I was always amazed that Dr. Clum, as president, could be such an inspiring orator and a calm and measured leader in an oftentimes contentious and political field. He was instrumental and often pivotal in nearly every chiropractic role in our field and while few of us were witness to all that he did, all of us have benefitted. He was someone who could promote unity and respect diversity. He was strong and kind and respectful to all. And through it all he quietly dealt with a private pain and adversity in a way I had never seen before. He would walk through the halls with a benign smile on his face shaking hands and conversing with this person and that and yet he would have a stiff walk that to our young trained eyes meant, “this guy’s got knee problems.” He suffered from RA that curtailed his adjusting career, but gave us what we needed to be his hands a ten thousand fold. When we did get together for lunch some 30 plus years ago I asked him, “How can you be in chronic pain, and yet be apparently unburdened by it?” He replied, “It used to really bother me, and affected me negatively, but at a certain point I realized: it was just pain, and it ceased to have the same emotional hold on me This is the kind of wisdom that comes with patience and compassion and something we all need to learn but few of us have.

The last time I saw Gerry was in May of this year, when I asked if I could come by to show him a technique I have been developing. He was gracious and friendly as ever, and in his inimitable style was both encouraging and caringly forthright in his opinions. He was my hero, and still is, in the sense that I can look within myself and ask, “What would Gerry do?” and be likely to get the right answer.

I'm so sorry for the loss of Gerry. 

One of the Greatest warriors and advocates for Chiropractic in my Lifetime... You would need volumes of books and journals do illustrate his contributions. Dr. Clum had one of the most powerful intellectual minds that our profession had ever seen. Dr. Gerard Clum was a day one member of the Life Chiropractic College faculty. His lectures were from memory directly from the texts of books like Boyd's Pathology. He did roll call for 138 classmates from memory. Another unique aspect of his classroom decorum was from the first day of class of the 1st quarter on our quest for that Doctor of Chiropractic Degree from Life College, Dr. Clum would respond to his students in his class as “Doctor”. When you asked a question or engaged in class discussion he would address you as Doctor; He would say Dr. Rabin, Dr. Harman, Dr. Briegel, Dr. Mestdagh, Dr. Herman or Dr. Rushin. He instilled in all of us from the beginning we were already there. He enabled us to embrace the responsibility and the burden before us. Class Act! Just a few examples of his abilities and traits. He later became the President of Life Chiropractic College West in California. He was a renouned lectheror in all aspects of Chiropractic education and elements of practice. He testified before the Us Congress. He had given testimony before the WHO of the United Nations. Dr. Clum had no limits, an absolutely remarkable human being. I was fortunate to have had him for a teacher, colleague and good friend. Dr. Gerry went with the inaugural Life Rugby Team to our first tournament at Hilton Head Island. He hung with the team at the welcome party. We had a wonderful time with this future protege for the profession. He was one the guys that night and we all had an awesome time, a memory I will cherish for ever. I have always had the highest respect and love for man who became ledgend...