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Tahoe Pine Nuts: Let’s hear it from the narrow-mouthed whorl

McAvoy Layne
Pine Nuts

I am writing you from Ireland, where I have just won a small victory. I would propose a toast with a glass of ale, but I don’t have any arms; I’m a snail, a narrow-mouthed whorl, who has been given a new lease on life here in County Clare.

But let me explain. A wealthy American wants to build a sea wall almost two miles long off our Irish coast to protect his golf course at Doonbeg from rising Atlantic tides, while at the same time denying that our seas are rising with climate change, a fact that even a poor little whorl like me understands is unassailable, I mean unassailable.

Well let me tell you, it ain’t easy being a whorl. That sea wall would turn us out to become refugees, so I want to personally thank the environmentalists who stepped in and put a stop to it in court, temporarily, as there will likely be an appeal.



When you live with your house on your back you become acutely aware of environmental changes, whereas human beings who live in towers don’t have a clue. It’s sad but true.

We whorls hardly ever have a voice in environmental matters, and I want to thank a very smart and caring octopus friend of mine for transmitting my concerns to a columnist in America who is sympathetic to the life of a little whorl like me.



Apparently he was a whorl in a past life, and still leads the life of a whorl, from what I’m told.

Human beings are risk takers. They will smoke and drink and carry-on after midnight when they know it can kill them. Personally, I wouldn’t touch a cigarette with a barge pole.

These same human beings are willing to risk the health of the planet with the same devil-may-care suicidal insouciance. It’s crazy, but true. Humans are fouling the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

And I might like to mention just here, that escargot is really bad for humans, really really bad.

Were I superintending things would be different. To offer a laundry-list, along with healing the environment, we need to ensure that little whorls like me share in the profits they create by rewarding corporate profit sharing, strengthening collective bargaining rights, and limiting corporate consolidation.

I’m not a political animal, I hardly ever come out of my shell, but I would like to see some rectitude on the part of human beings in regards to our environment. The environment is really all we have, not a thing to be speculated and gambled.

We whorls would never speculate on the environment, though I would love to visit the Hyatt at Lake Tahoe and try my luck at mahjong.

They tell me Lake Tahoe is cold, and that I would not last three minutes in her waters, but I’d take the “over” on that bet, and take it to the bank if I could get somebody to press the pin numbers for me.

Well, so much for now, I hear my wife calling, dinner is ready, and tonight we’re having my favorite, micro fungi!

Learn more about McAvoy Layne at http://www.ghostoftwain.com.


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