Tiara

When I first heard of her, she was the unstable wife of the mayor of a backward southern town. Then her husband was killed in a bar fight. She was convinced that he was killed as a result of a conspiracy, so she ran for mayor and won.

For a while after that I saw her on television every week, raging at the town council, accusing them of all manner of chicanery. She was entertaining. The town regressed. She did not win reelection.

The next time I saw her she had a following. She was a princess of the Dugdemona tribe of Native Americans, which she had founded. She claimed five counties of a state that had been sold in the Louisiana Purchase. She based her claims on language in the treaty which referred to the Indians. She had followers. She had opened the tribe's membership to anyone who paid the membership fee.

I looked around for her on the web today, but did not find her. She may be lost to time.