E. Texas bomb suspect makes one ask: "What's in the water up there?"

Outsiders might wonder: “What’s in the water there?”

I’m talking about northern East Texas. First there was a rash of church fires. Then came a series of pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails being found, many in mailboxes. Of the latter, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives offered a $25,000 reward for “suspicious devices:”

“Numerous of these devices have been placed in blue United States Postal Service collection boxes. The suspicious items have been incendiary-style devices as well as devices that resemble pipe bombs. These incidents have occurred in the counties of Smith, Rusk, Gregg, Harrison, and Panola.”

They resembled pipe bombs? Oh well, it must be a government thing. In fact it was, allegedly.

Authorities say Larry Eugene North, 52, of Henderson, Texas, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday and arrested the same day without incident.

“North had previously been identified as a person of interest in connection with destructive devices which were being placed in postal collection boxes in East Texas,” said a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas. ” On the morning on Apr. 7, 2010, North was observed placing such a device in a Tyler collection box leading to his subsequent arrest in the 3400 block of Corporate Drive.  Following his arrest, a search of North’s vehicle revealed an additional destructive device.”

The suspect apparently ” … did not care for the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston said at a press conference in Tyler this morning. Maybe he was mad about the plan to close post offices on Saturday although somehow I think not.

As to my earlier question of what’s in the water in northern East Texas? It depends on where you go. There are some places up there — as opposed to Southeast Texas to which we refer as “down here” — where the water could be contaminated with chicken waste. Chicken growing is a big deal in that part of the country. Why you can’t go up there to down here without coming across a chicken grove. Or perhaps it is chicken patties. Chicken pastures? Hey, I used to raise chickens and shovel out their excrement, so my knowledge of chickens is not a total waste.

Seriously, all of this coming on the heels of the string of church fires in the same vicinity causes one to pause and ask: What gives? The brother of one of my sister-in-laws is the pastor of one of the churches torched and is a fine man. So, even though I don’t feel his “pain” all of this is to me is not so much an abstraction. It is gratifying to many, and to me as well, that two suspects were arrested. If there has been a motive learned in these arsons I have not heard it even though a motive sometimes seems irrelevant.

Let’s let the law take its course in both of these cases of serial idiocy. These cases that just all coincidentally, perhaps,  happened in roughly the same vicinity.