Couldn't Stand the Weather

 Week Three: Couldn’t Stand the Weather 

Like a train that stops at every station,

We all deal with trials and tribulations.

Fear hangs the fellow that ties up his years.

Entangled in yellow and cries all his tears.

--Stevie Ray Vaughn, Couldn’t Stand the Weather, from Couldn’t Stand the Weather

I sometimes think that for the most part people think in metaphors but express themselves in similes. It’s easier than explaining, so concepts like trains stopping along a lifetime of tracks so the passengers can deal with “trials and tribulations” is more conveniently expressed as a simile. Life is like a train…

Not so with “entangled in yellow,” or even the personification of fear, but I for one, think I understand. Actually what I understand is that the “fellow” hangs himself because of fear, and the “yellow” part will remain a mystery in the sense that I can’t explain the word choice. The entanglement I get.

Here’s the best and absolutely worst example I can muster: the ineffable rash of mass murders in the United States: a 23 year-old man responsible for at least six explosive devices in and around Austin, Texas; a 19 year-old male who killed seventeen people in a high school in Parkland, Florida; a 28 year-old monster who murdered twenty small children, six adults, and his own mother at Newtown, Connecticut; and a mentally ill college senior who systematically killed 32 people in two episodes on the campus of Virginia Tech.

In April of 2007 Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people and wounded 17 others before committing suicide on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Despite a clinical diagnosis of anxiety disorder and a declaration of mental illness in 2005 upon investigation of his behavior regarding two female students, Cho legally purchased the guns he used to kill dozens of defenseless victims.

In 2012 Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother before entering Sandy Hook Elementary School where he massacred twenty-six defenseless victims. According to the Connecticut State’s Attorney’s official report, Lanza’s Asperger’s syndrome nor his chronic depression and anxiety caused or led to his murderous acts. Huh? Is there any other explanation? Could there possibly be another explanation? Here’s what the state’s attorney’s office concluded: an atypical preoccupation with violence and access to deadly weapons proved a recipe for mass murder.

Shortly after 2:00 p.m. on a sunny February afternoon in 2013, Nikolas Cruz hired an Uber driver to deliver him to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida where shortly thereafter he killed seventeen people while wounding fifteen, and traumatizing a nation. Apparently there is evidence that Cruz “displayed an obsession with violence” (CNN). He was known to have mentioned Mexicans, Jewish people, and people of African heritage as those he hated, stating in a letter to the American President, “I think I’m going to kill people.” His murderous rampage seemed to redefine the parameters of his vitriol. 

And then… for a week a psychopath named Mark Conditt terrorized the people around Austin, Texas by leaving a series of package bombs. Although his death toll was far, far less than the others mentioned here, the impact of his behavior was in some ways far more devastating. “(The bombings were) the outcry of a very challenged young man talking about the challenges that led him to this point,” was how the police chief described Conditt’s actions. “We’re never going to be able to put a (rationale) behind these acts.”

I can’t imagine the paths that led to each of these events. In some significant ways I don’t want to understand why or how things got to the point that murdering unsuspecting victims was their answer. Understanding might lead me to empathising, although I can’t imagine that either. If this is what Stevie Ray meant then the list of fellows tied up in years and tangled in yellow continues to grow.

Using the perfect metaphor in describing the slaughter of children, the Governor Daniel Malloy of Connecticut said, “Evil visited this community today.” With genuine shame I can only add that evil continues to visit us like a train that stops at every station...while we are left to deal with the trials and tribulations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO23B5C_Mcw