From March 6, 2007
The Egg Man

[REF: from “True Success” by Tom Norris, p. 243]

“When I was at Yale, …. I was introduced to a very elderly man … Bob Calhoun.  [It would be easy] to misjudge this old gentleman.  When he retired from his post as an internationally renowned professor of Historical Theology at Yale, he began to raise chickens and became the egg man for some of his former colleagues.  Once a week he would bring eggs to their houses, often just open the door, let himself in, deposit the eggs in the refrigerator, and leave without a word.

One day, a well-known Yale theologian was entertaining one of the most famous intellectuals famous Europe, … Rudolf Bultman.  The two men were at the kitchen table arguing vigorously over a point of interpretation concerning a Greek text.  Old Mr. Calhoun, dressed in farmer’s overalls, opened the back door, padded across the kitchen floor with nod, and quietly put his basket of eggs in the refrigerator.  He walked across the room, and hesitated a moment before going out the door.  At a pause in the lively argument, he quoted from memory the disputed passage in Greek, gave his own brief interpretation, and walked out the door.

The great professor Bultman looked stunned.  He turned to his host and said, ‘Public education in America must be amazing!’”