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“Another One”
Well now, I’ll be 79 in a few short days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that getting older is—how shall I put it—okay. Not as glamorous as they made it sound when I…
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A Chronicle of Rare Earths and Sweeter Flesh
🍉 II. “Yttrium and the Melons of Serendipity” There’s a patch of soil behind Emil’s barn where the melons grow like gossip—round, fat, impossible to keep secret. Folks said he sang to them. Emil…
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A Tale of Mineral Uptake, Microbial Alchemy, and the Making of Food
🌱 I. “The Feast Beneath Our Feet” Emil O. Foofnick stood at the edge of his garden, gray hair glinting in the morning light, one hand on a hoe, the other on his chin.…
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A Foofnickian Tale of Pine Beach Lodge
by Emil O. Foofnick, beard flecked with campfire smoke and walleye scales There’s a place where time forgets to tick — where the loons call just to remind you that silence is alive. That…
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Don’t Let Them Divide Us
Now friends, if there’s one trick as old as moldy bread, it’s this: get folks fussing with each other while you quietly slip off with the pie. Kings and politicians did it, corporations still…
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When the Mountain’s Too Steep and the Map’s Gone Soggy
by Emil O. Foofnick There comes a moment—usually later than you’d like, and never with much warning—when the fixer in you has to lay down the wrench. Maybe it’s during a long night when…
Emil O'Foofnick
That’s all I have to say, I will say no more.
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This is how it all started…
If you ever received a letter in the 1940”s or so, from my father, N. Scott Thurston, you might have noticed it was signed not with his own name, but with the curious moniker Emil O. Foofnick. And, just below, you’d read the line: “I said what I want, so I’ll say no more. This wasn’t just a bit of whimsy. Emil O. Foofnick was a concoction brewed from the Thurston side—a blend of the wit passed down from a pen-and-ink artist grandfather (who, as family legend has it, once knew Mark Twain himself) and my father’s own flavor of playful mischief. Emil O. Foofnick was a signature, a wink, and a gentle dare: say your piece, and know when to let silence do the rest. I sometimes think Emil O. Foofnick would have gotten on just fine with Mark Twain, trading barbs and swapping stories over ink-stained pages. Twain, after all, understood the art of a well-placed word—and the wisdom of knowing when to stop.
I didn’t inherit the pen exactly, but I did inherit the curiosity. My path meandered through laboratories full of pathogenic organisms (where the only thing sharper than the pipettes was my sense of caution), wandered into the fields of organic agriculture (where I learned how soil and sweat can make miracles), and eventually led me to the world of probiotics and enzymes—as part of Master Supplements and USEnzymes—where invisible helpers work wonders in ways even Twain might have called “peculiar, but true.” This blog is my way of signing in as Emil O. Foofnick: part scientist, part storyteller, and always a bit of a Thurston—ready to say what I want, and sometimes, to say no more.
So pull up a chair. Expect a little science, a little mischief, and maybe a dash of Twainian wisdom. After all, as Emil O. Foofnick would say:
“I said what I want, so I’ll say no more.”
Emil O’Foofnick
Writer And Journalist