The "Nazarene" Absent Minded Professor

[Nelson Bradford]

I was reminded Sat of the professor, employed by one of our fine institutions of higher learning, who having a meeting in another city, drove there. When the conference closed, he flew home and called his wife asking she come pick him up.

She reminded him they had only one car and he had driven it to that conference.

On another occasion, he opened a class with a few remarks and one of the students told him he was in the wrong class room. Embarrassed, he folded up his stuff, left the room went down the hall a few feet, entered into the same room through the door at the back, walked to the front of the class and began again.

Both of those stories were told as being 100% true and about one of our finest.

I shudder at times, primarily, because I cannot help but wonder how close I am to that status.

8-)

What do you mean I already am?

[Dennis M. Scott]

While I didn't witness either of those specific situations, I did have the esteemed person of whom you speak, and have no reason to doubt either of them. There are a couple things I did experience first hand with him, and they only served to endear him to all of us. For the record, they weren't due to his age, which makes them even scarier.

[Billy Cox]

I was reminded Sat of the professor, employed by one of our fine institutions of higher learning, who having a meeting in another city, drove there. When the conference closed, he flew home and called his wife asking she come pick him up.

She reminded him they had only one car and he had driven it to that conference.

On another occasion, he opened a class with a few remarks and one of the students told him he was in the wrong class room. Embarrassed, he folded up his stuff, left the room went down the hall a few feet, entered into the same room through the door at the back, walked to the front of the class and began again.

Both of those stories were told as being 100% true and about one of our finest.

I shudder at times, primarily, because I cannot help but wonder how close I am to that status.

8-)

What do you mean I already am?

The Kenneth Grider legend lives on.

[Craig Laughlin]

As I recall he sure could seem to focus when playing ping pong.

We used to have trouble with him staying in one language at a time. He would start explaining the nuances of a word, writing it on the board in English transliteration, get interrupted then the middle of the word would be in Greek and he would go off on a tangent about the root and the last part of the word was in Hebrew. - Generally at a graduate level the students love language and have pretty high proficiency but a couple of times that year we had to ask him to pick one language. Maybe he could hold that all together but I was sure lost.

Most impactful was that he truly lived his faith. --- And now for the great confession.... If you attended his memorial service at NTS... The phone that went off (loudly) at the end... it was mine. One of my most embarrassing moments.

[Bob Hunter]

This is all so amusing. Ken Grider mentored my father-in-law and I can verify (through my father-in-law) they were true. My father-in-law reminds me how absent minded Grider was. He was also brilliant, but once showed up to class with two ties on. Someone explain that.

[Dennis M. Scott]

The Kenneth Grider legend lives on.

Actually, you're right: it lives on and gets bigger as it grows. Forty years ago the story about forgetting his car was merely that he had driven to school and then walked home. He also once got to the post office with his garbage, and realized he had put the mail in the rubbish can.

One that I experienced was that in our class after chapel, he arrived wearing no tie - which was pretty remarkable for him. One of my classmates said, "Dr. Grider, did you know you have no tie?" He reached up to his throat and was somewhat distraught upon finding his shirt buttoned, but no tie. "I don't think I've ever done that before," he said. "Once when I was at the University of Edinburgh, I wore two ties, but I don't think I ever had no tie. On that day, I was running a little bit late in the morning, and put on my shirt and tie, went downstairs to breakfast, loosened my tie to eat, and when I was running out the door, buttoned my shirt and didn't feel my tie, so I ran back upstairs and put on another tie. When I got to class, one of my fellow students said, 'Joe, did you know you have on two ties?" He went on with his lecture to us, and about twenty minutes later, he stopped and said, "I spoke at the theology club breakfast this morning to theologians from the other seminaries in Kansas City. They must have thought I was rather peculiar for not wearing a tie." Nobody said it, but it occurred to us that not wearing a tie would have been one of the least of all reasons to think him peculiar. We loved him.

[Jim Franklin]

This is for Biology Bill: Once was a biology prof. who brown bagged for lunch and one day he carried two identical brown bags to the campus. in the afternoon lab he was to teach about disecting a frog and when he opened the second bag expecting to take out a frog speciman he found his lunch. He then remembered that his lunch had tasted a bit strange.

[John Reilly]

Dr. Grider's book is an often used resource. In 1977, Dr. J. Kenneth Grider interviewed Bertha Munroe in a transcript entitled, "Our Church: Memories and Forecasts of a 90-year-old." This testimony is printed in the Earl Wolf book about her, "The Best of Bertha Munroe. Bertha Munroe said, "I still hear Dr. J. B. Chapman's statement that if at least 51 percent of the members of the Church of the Nazarene possess this sanctifying experience, it is a holiness church." I wonder what percent they would assess our church at today.

[Brian Hammons]

This is all so amusing. Ken Grider mentored my father-in-law and I can verify (through my father-in-law) they were true. My father-in-law reminds me how absent minded Grider was. He was also brilliant, but once showed up to class with two ties on. Someone explain that.

The "two tie" story I always heard about resulted from one of his infamous ping-pong matches. He had turned/flipped his tie over his shoulder to keep it from interferring w/ his play. As he was preparing to go to his next class, he realized the absence of a tie and pulled on from the back of his door and donned it.

Another favorite involved the time he drove home . . . to the house he & his wife had recently moved from. His key wouldn't unlock the door, so he sat down on the door step to await his wife's arrival home. A neighborhood boy rode by on his bike, stopped to tell him he didn't live there anymore. In his true humble manner, he apologized profusely to the young boy. The boy's consoling words back were "Oh, that's okay. Mom said you'd be back."

[Greg Gates]

does anyone have a copy of the email, he would send pastor friends, to help him find a wife? he listed the benefits of being married to him and what he expected from a prospective wife. even funnier because he was so serious

[Billy Cox]

Actually, you're right: it lives on and gets bigger as it grows. Forty years ago the story about forgetting his car was merely that he had driven to school and then walked home. He also once got to the post office with his garbage, and realized he had put the mail in the rubbish can.

One that I experienced was that in our class after chapel, he arrived wearing no tie - which was pretty remarkable for him. One of my classmates said, "Dr. Grider, did you know you have no tie?" He reached up to his throat and was somewhat distraught upon finding his shirt buttoned, but no tie. "I don't think I've ever done that before," he said. "Once when I was at the University of Edinburgh, I wore two ties, but I don't think I ever had no tie. On that day, I was running a little bit late in the morning, and put on my shirt and tie, went downstairs to breakfast, loosened my tie to eat, and when I was running out the door, buttoned my shirt and didn't feel my tie, so I ran back upstairs and put on another tie. When I got to class, one of my fellow students said, 'Joe, did you know you have on two ties?" He went on with his lecture to us, and about twenty minutes later, he stopped and said, "I spoke at the theology club breakfast this morning to theologians from the other seminaries in Kansas City. They must have thought I was rather peculiar for not wearing a tie." Nobody said it, but it occurred to us that not wearing a tie would have been one of the least of all reasons to think him peculiar. We loved him.

I had heard the two tie story also, but didn't remember exactly how it went.

[Greg Gates]

my great aunt was dean of women at Olivet when he arrived. she talked about how unusually poor he was when he arrived at Olivet (and this was at a time when everyone was really poor!) and how bad his grammar was, lol.

I played ping pong a lot with him at NTS. It started when I was in the library and he came up to me and said, "Mr. Gates, I hear you enjoy playing ping pong. Would you be willing to play a game with me? (or something like that). One time he felt hot and took off his shirt and I saw wires coming out of his back. Haven't seen that since.

another funny time was with the mic he used in class. He would wear a collar thing around his neck with a mic hanging from it, hooked up to an amplified speaker system. One day he adjusted the collar too tightly but still managed to buckle it shut, only to realize it was too tight and he began to gag. Of course, the gagging sounds were amplified while he was desperately trying to unbuckle it and I thought I was the one going to die, of laughter...

Does anyone remember the topic of his first lecture in his holiness class?

Did anyone accept his challenge to lose weight? He offered a set of holiness books to the first year student who lost the most weight in a semester.

[Dennis M. Scott]

m
Does anyone remember the topic of his first lecture in his holiness class?

He wasn't teaching holiness when I was there, but I suspect I could identify the topic of which you speak!

You were till single then, weren't you?

[Greg Gates]

You were still single then, weren't you?

...yep