A HODAG you say?

Ok, as promised... I must tell you of the HODAG.

When business is slow, and you're pretty inventive, you just might "invent" something to pick things up a bit.  Get some attention, make a few bucks and make it so everyone could have a good laugh.

Such is the storied history of the HODAG.  Pronounced in English; hoe - dag

So where do we start...

The classic point of beginning...

This picture has been hanging in bars and on post cards for almost a hundred years and is exemplary of early marketing brilliance before the Harvard B-School meant anything to anybody.  Take note HBS, you're no better than this pic!  IMHO...

So on to the history of the little monster named "Clover" in the pic above...

An inventive guy by the name of Eugene Shepard invented the creature in 1893 a year of great economic decline in the US.  This economic malaise lingered until WW-1 with excess capacity, uncertain markets and foundering business starts.

Economists I know, say the American Civil War was what started the ball rolling towards this correction... Meh, it was a period where finding a good job versus staying on the farm was a real roll of the dice...

Roll the hands of time forward 100 years...

So - foundering economy, great success at hyping the HODAG myth at state fairs.... meant Shepard could provide for his family = a myth is born!

I'm not sure as to how this correlates to Big Foot or Yeti... but that's a great paper for some student to write on anthropology of the modern age...

In my home town of Montreal, Wisconsin we have great trout lakes, lots of wooded acreage but reject the HODAG... alas we have the black bear and the porcupine. AND the Skunk... but I digress... I have met these woodland creatures in their environment as a hiker, berry picker, or passer-by but I must tell you they have no interest in you or I.  Those real creatures simply want to go their own way.

So I will close with my suggestions to Umbertide, Zweibrucken and Redmond...

Zweibrucken... I think a good alien abduction is in order.  Complete with scary details that chronicle the plucking of tree ID tags in front of the Rosarium - in a revelation that Big foot loves roses - so it picked a few here and snagged some tags too...

Umbertide your next.  I love Umbertide and would move there if I could ever figure out how... Listening!?  OK - you guys need a mythical monster that "lives" on Mt Acuto.  Trust me.  A local taking a hike runs into the "thing" WHAM!  Success! Tourists from all the EU converge to see the "thing"  ohh also offer night viewing in an observatory (I have the plans if you are interested!)  and did I say I love Umbertide?  Gubbio too! Both cities are amazing and for different reasons.

Redmond you have the best chance of identifying that crazy birdman that keeps on dive bombing the MircoSoft building... Shhhhh.  Pure cryptozoology gold.

All events should include out of focus photography and some oddly distorted sound clip. 

AML JRO, NLO and SEO All my love!