Welcome to Lake Finney: Home of Big Claw!

Warning!

Big Claw, a 5-inch (or thereabouts) Red Swamp Crayfish, properly named Procambarus clarkii, inhabits the cigarette-butt, liquor-bottle, beer-can, go-cup, grill-lighter fluid, rotten-dock, fast-food-wrapper, frat-trash filled lake sandwiched by the Chi Psi house, Courts Hall, Trezevant Hall, and one private house.

When Big Claw emerges and scampers to one of its many mud holes, it may notice you -- eventually -- and suddenly rise up like a '50s horror-film monster, waving its pincers threateningly while swiftly backtracking to the water, where it dives under moldy leaves and garbage, leaving only air bubbles visible on the surface.

If, like me, you startle, you will stare, gape-mouthed, and blurt, "Holy moly! That's one BIG crayfish!"

That red-pimpled crustacean has mastered one thing that the rest of may have to learn: how to thrive in the refuse of others.

Forget Monteagle's welcome sign warning of Big Foot; Sewanee: University of the South is proud to be home to BIG CLAW!