Little Pearly’s Hope is the first of a series of  Unshelfish Oyster Tales that author Martin Fry wrote and illustrated. Martin, a master mason, who built a number of Austin’s landmark’s like the Shady Grove Restaurant, South Congress Café and The Tuscany restorations,  and helped with the Wheatsville Coop green renovations has an interesting connection with the Ram’s Horn oysters. Being a local geology enthusiast he discovered ancient oyster beds while on a fossil dig. These prehistoric organisms profoundly connected with him and he soon started making parallels with the ancient oyster communities and our modern day human ones. Martin felt compelled to write about them, aside from his web publications, and wrote this beautiful children’s book as the perfect forum to do so.

Lo and behold the lowly and common fossil oyster that once inhabited the shallow seas of prehistory, is a specimen largely taken for granted and misunderstood. Its ‘benign’ historical purpose can teach us about community and giving and self-sacrifice for our fellow human, and much more!! How so, you might ask, could this fossilized creature have been so ‘humane’? Well, it ‘gave’ of its very own, (calcium [strength]), to bond with its neighbors. In doing so, it formed very large reef communities that filtered the water by feeding on algae so that bay flora could receive more light to thrive and oxygenate. As a reef community it eased shore erosion by ‘taking on’ the constant onslaught of wave action. The community actually protected each other as well as providing refuge for the helpless organisms and small fish fleeing from their enemies. The reef even provided a home for strange organisms needing shelter and food ‘gathered’ there. The oyster was also a major food source for many diverse creatures of land and sea. Need more be said? Well there is a lot more to be said about this fossil that is mistaken for a snail! This creature could also take the pain of a grain of sand or other foreign object that found its way into its shell and form a beautiful pearl as a result!!! We as men and women know about the awesome beauty of pearls, but the real beauty should be in the ‘work’ that we do for our common-unity and our collective ecosystem. We as thinking, feeling, human beings can learn from the beauty within the lives of these UNSHELFISH fossil oysters whose strength was and is for the good of all! They were preserved for a purpose greater than being merely interesting shelf-specimen. They were preserved also to be observed for their benevolent example to humanity and as an effective tool thereby!

and there is still more for you to see, of and for your own unshelfishness….Go to www.unshelfish.com to learn more of this ancient Ram’s Horn fossil aptly named H.O.P.E Stone and how you and others can benefit with this excellent tool for our lives!