The Nation: EXIT EARL, NOT LAUGHING

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While cleaning out his big, airy corner office, Butz chatted with TIME Correspondent Jerry Hannifin. Two ears of golden Iowa corn—a present from an admirer—glowed on his desk, and the horse collar he brought with him to Washington five years ago still hung on the wall, a reminder of his years of plowing fields as a boy on a 160-acre farm in Noble County, Ind. Said he: "I've paid a tremendous price. I'm going back to Purdue, where I studied and taught. I'm going to be an adjunct professor of some sort, talk to students, make speeches ... You know, I don't know how many times I told that joke, and everywhere—political groups, church groups—nobody took offense, and nobody should. I like humor. I'm human."