tfpb

"THE FINE PRINT"

The musings of Michael Schrader

                THE TEXAS HEAT CAN DO IT TO YOU...
(Written 2 September 2001; posted 3 September 2001)

        There have been a rash of family killings here in Texas the past several months. Of course, the most notorious is the mother in Houston who drowned her children. But that case is the mere tip of the iceberg.
        Within the past several weeks here in North Texas, we have had a man shoot his estranged wife and two children and then himself; a man shoot his estranged wife, stepson, and neighbor while the neighbor was escorting the wife into the house to collect some belongings; a man who killed his estranged wife and two step-children only a few weeks after she sprung him out on bail for beating another woman; and, sadly, the list goes on and on . . .
        What is it about Texas that makes people homicidal? I don’t thinks it’s the water, for these crimes are happening in different cities with different water supplies. Although the availability of handguns could be considered a contributing factor in some of the crimes, it was not the weapon of choice in all of them. After all, in the Houston case, the weapon was water. After having spent my third summer in Texas, I am almost beginning to wonder if the weather does not play some role.
        When I was a traffic engineer in Illinois, I discovered that the vandalism and theft of signs increased in August. At the time, I theorized it was due to college students wanting to have some decorations for their rooms. While that may be true, did the weather have some role? Did the dog days of summer affect their psyches in such a way that they were more inclined to steal? I wonder.
       When I moved to Texas, I was warned about the brutal summers. But, I was not worried. I could handle it. After all, I had spent four summers in Little Rock, where the temperatures hover in the 90s most of the summer and the humidity is downright oppressive. I must admit, even Arkansas summers did not prepare for the heat of a Texas summer.
       You will hear people say that triple-digit heat is not bad when you have low humidity. Let me say that that is a bunch of bunk. When it is over one-hundred degrees, it is blasted hot, with or without humidity. While the first two summers were hotter in terms of actual temperature, this summer, despite its lower temperatures, feels hotter to me for some reason. Perhaps it is that I am getting older and becoming more sensitive to the heat. Perhaps. But, perhaps there is some other factor that really does make it feel hotter not just to me but to others, too. I know that Mrs. Schrader has noticed the heat much more this year than last. So too have the little Schraders, who limit their outdoor activities to the evening. (It’s just too hot to play!)
        I have noticed that this summer Mrs. Schrader and I seemed to be a lot more short-tempered. Of course, the fact that our air conditioner cannot get the house any cooler than 80 without freezing up does not exactly help matters. When you are hot and sweaty all of the time, you tend to “lose your cool” (no pun intended!) much more quickly. I can just imagine how short-tempered and irritable those Texans that lived at a time when air-conditioning, even only quasi-functional air-conditioning was available.
        Ironically, when I was a kid I hated the cold and couldn’t wait to move south to a warm climate. Now as an adult, I hate the heat and can’t wait to move north to a cold climate. Frankly, I am tired of being irritable. Hmmm… Perhaps if more people move north, they will be less irritable, and less likely to kill. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?