Feral lives

The women from the schismatic polygamous Mormon sect in West Texas have been much on TV this week. They all look like 1938 pictures of our ancestresses -- the hairdos, the dresses. Though they don't have much experience of television, they are pretty effective when they are on camera; mothers bereft of their children, even flaky mothers, resonate with most of us. The adults seem well indoctrinated into life in their peculiar beliefs. One of the early Catholic theologians said something like 'Give me a child until he is five and I'll have him for life.' [That's an approximation from memory.] I suspect there's something similar at work here. We have an old cat who freeloads off our food but is completely unapproachable. I believe he's of the feline lineage that lives in cane patches and bayou bottoms around here, cats that come out and play in the sun but disappear into the underbrush when you get close, unwilling to engage with people. I think these poor people from Eldorado are kind of like feral cats, in that they will never fit smoothly into the larger world after growing up with that odd-wad society of cultivated alienation from the world.