Knob Snob

                      I never know how  much personal stuff my Readers will tolerate .   I want to write about purchasing a new propane fueled space heater but attaching Significance to it is the Challenge .   I mean it this way :  who fucking CARES that an old man buys a space heater ?--  so what ?

           My Hero, Hermann Hesse, once spent some considerable time describing his indecision regarding whether not not to put a rubber knob at the end of his walking cane .  Apparently he considered the knob to be 'bourgeois' {decadent} and because he was a man of convinced liberality 'it' would somehow go against his Principles .   Now, for me, it would have been a decision based on mechanics, the knob would provide "bite" to the cane and prevent slippage and/or skidding, so in that decision, Science rules .  Thing is, Hesse persisted and did so from a CULTURAL standpoint,, making the knob a fucking SYMBOL of Social/Cultural refinement and/or sophistication .  This THIS is the "authorial privilege" we have learned to Respect .