Back in the old days, a hotel owner named John Wesley Porter (1876-1923) had a going concern in McCleary. He ran the Porter Hotel for the working men in Henry McCleary's mill and door plant. There was a place just shortly north of the door plant known as the Pig Lot. This was where Porter kept his pigs as a source of bacon and ham for his hotel guests.

Oldtimers in McCleary still call the area the Pig Lot. It is now a shallow lake formed by a dam. It covers probably 3 to 5 acres. In the summer it is shallow enough to retain enough heat to support a hungry caiman. Locals have fed the lake with fish, and lots of ducks, geese, and cranes rest there. So a caiman should do OK during the summer months.

It would have to be retrieved by September, since up here in the Coast Range we get pretty cold pretty fast. And you can't get there by motorized vehicle, so be prepared to have several friends help you transport the creature overland on foot.

Of course, if you are a millionaire playboy like Bruce Wayne, or OlyBlog's Master, Rick, you could afford to drop a caiman into the Pig Lot via Black Helicopter. But the rest of us would have to do it the old fashioned way-- manually.

There is a lot of ink devoted to Lewis and Clark's giant Newfoundland dog, Seaman. But how many scholars have really investigated the role of Skippy, the caiman, who accompanied the expedition? By my count, not one.

Someone out there in OlyBlogland needs to rise to the challenge and record the exploits of this brave caiman for the world to see. I am, according to AARP, a senior citizen now, so my opinion no longer counts as I become increasingly invisible as I age. There is a great opportunity for a scholar to devote years of her/his life to this subject.