Our church is a lively bunch, and is always full of characters doing shenanigans, funny things or just plain silly stuff. When you are a farmer, almost anything can happen, as that is a dangerous lifestyle on a good day. Getting kicked by critters, stampedes, wild hogs, snakes and varmints, you name it, there is never a dull moment.

I have had to deal with quite a few snakes over the years; Uncle Muddy puts out wild hog traps every year too and most every year we catch at least one. We don’t usually eat those, but Uncle Muddy has them processed and donates the meat to the various causes around. He almost always has it made entirely into sausage. We have to have the packages wrapped, with a label on it that says the date and, “Wild Porcine Meat – Not For Sale.” Otherwise the food banks can’t or won’t take it. Some of them won’t anyway; Uncle Muddy does keep the hog bellies though, since that is the bacon part.

Back to my story, this one Wednesday night one of our members came in, and he looked plum drunk, or ill or like he was “high on trucker pills.” That is what Mamaw says about everybody, if they ain’t acting right, as you probably know by now. But this time it looked like something else entirely, instead of plain ol’ trucker pills, and it was pretty serious to boot.

Ol’ Mr Landry, one of our older, long standing church members came in wild acting, all out of his head. Now normally Mr. Landry doesn’t say much, and just says a courteous hello or what have you. He works from sunup to sundown on his cattle ranch, and does almost all of it by himself with a ranch hand and his sweet wife, Ms. Mildred. Now Ms. Mildred didn’t come to church that night; she was tending to a mama cow who was having a calf, so she could not leave it in distress. That is what we heard later.

He is never late for Wednesday night prayer meeting, and he almost never misses, but he was thirty minutes late this time. He was sitting in the very back too, and he normally loves being in the rows near the front. Halfway through the Bible reading, we were all looking back at him, because he was just steady jabbering, talking to somebody, but we could barely hear what he was saying.

Finally, the man leading the preaching that night stopped the service, and said “Brother Tom. Tom Landry, are you feeling OK? You ain’t sitting up front, and you are acting funny.” Ol’ Mr. Landry got straight up out of his back row end seat, staggered down the aisle and fell down, flop! Right down on the floor he went, right in front of the preacher. He passed out stone cold right there.

Before we could call the ambulance though, he woke right back up, and had everybody who had gathered round him by then help him stand. They all did, and they had him sit right down on the aisle seat on the front row. Mr. Landry apologized profusely, still slurring his words and weaving in his seat, barely able to function.

Someone brought him a bottle of water, and he drank it like he was dying of thirst. When he finished it, he spoke to all of us, still sitting on that front row aisle seat. “Y’all, I apologize for this, but I think I might be called to preach. I was out in the pasture, like I do every day and I was spraying for weeds. I must’ve been out there seven, maybe eight hours just driving the tractor around. I had me a hand sprayer, and I did that all day long.”

“Directly, I started hearing somebody holler “Big Tommy! Big Tommy! You had better listen to me!” I looked around, the tractor was still running but I didn’t see anybody. My phone was in the cab but it didn’t have no messages either, and my tractor has a big cab with a radio, but it was off. My two way radio that I use to talk to Mildred was off too. I heard a man’s voice. I kept hearing it all day louder and louder. I looked at my watch and realized I was late for church.

I drove back and got cleaned up, and got in my truck but here I am, and that may be a voice calling me to preach. I ain’t never heard another voice like it in my life! Just then he got sick on his stomach and started weaving again, so the preacher called 911 just to be safe. While we were waiting on the ambulance, we all gathered around him, and laid hands on him praying; all the while he was talking crazy to that imaginary voice. When the ambulance finally got there, Mr. Landry was at himself a little better, but they took him on to the emergency room just to be sure.

Before he got into the ambulance, he told us the voice had started saying, “Tommy, you ain’t called, you ain’t called you just slam wore out!” That voice Mr. Landry kept hearing, just kept telling him that, and it was crazy I think and made no sense whatsoever. We heard later they tested his blood for everything. They tested him for everything that might cause this, but Mr. Landry doesn’t take anything but BC powder for ‘the headache’ and that’s it. He dips a little snuff, but he doesn’t even smoke or anything like that.

The doctor finally told him they found traces of a very powerful weedkiller in his system, and when he told them he had been exposed to it all day, it had apparently caused him to hear voices it made him so sick. So it was determined that he wasn’t called to preach, like he thought. He was high as a kite on weed killer.

Like I said, its always something going on here at church; and sometimes its just plain funny. Maybe that was an angel trying to get Mr. Landry to quit spraying that weed killer?