The post that was quoted here has been removedMoney well spent ...
"Thomas pulled an orange fool's cap tipped with silver bells from his knapsack.
To think that I have worn this abomination, or its mate, since I was sixteen.
Sixteen to sixty-five, so says the law, said the Dead Father....
And had I been caught out-of-doors without it, my ears cut off, said Thomas. What a notion. What an imagination.... But remember there was a time when he was slicing people's ears off with a wood chisel. Two-inch blade." (Barthelme. The Dead Father.