about me – Dave Socky
I’m all about caving, hiking, and climbing and other outdoor activities.
A little about myself….
I have been caving for 50 years, and have been doing still and video photography for 43 of those years. I started caving in 1973 from Louisville, Kentucky, where I was working for General Electric. I went caving almost every weekend in Kentucky and Indiana, plus a few excursions out west. When I moved to Circleville, Ohio, I bought a 35 mm camera. I was still caving almost every weekend, surveying caves, drawing maps, and taking many pictures. I even entered some of my prints and slides in the NSS Photo Salon. I garnered at least one Honorable mention.
After spending one year in Circleville , Ohio, I moved to Cleveland to work for General Electric’s lamp facility at Nela Park. After putting up with Cleveland for five years, I obtained a better job (and location) with GE in Roanoke, Virginia in the fall of 1981. My primary criteria for a new location was that it had to be within a couple hours of decent caves, of which Roanoke fit the bill very good. What made Roanoke even better was the fact that it was not a large city – it is also were I met my wife, Mary Sue, who is also a caver.
After reaching saturation for still photography, I switched over to cave videography in 1983. Since then, I have slowly been improving my video equipment and my editing skills. What really kept me going in the hobby of videography was the quick movement of analog editing to digital – computer – based editing. Plus the quick improvement of cameras – both in image quality and in light sensitivity.
What do I do?
I’m mostly retired now, but I still keep my brand, Hodag Video Productions, active. I am a one person enterprise (which is more of a hobby than a business), and specialize in videos about caves and caving, mountains and mountaineering, and other outdoor activity. I produce documentary type videos about specific caves or caving areas, conservation and/or educational programs, semi-fictional programs about caves and cavers, and even fun MTV style “music videos” about caves and cavers. I’ve done more then just caving videos, though. I’ve produced plenty of programs on hiking and mountaineering and slot canyons in Utah and New Mexico.
I still produce videos, but not quite as much as I used to. Mainly because I’m so busy caving, surveying, and producing cave maps.
I also do web sites – this one being one of my projects. And this website is primarily my showcase for the videos I’ve produced and the photography and slide shows I’ve done.
It’s a fun journey – and hope you enjoy this site!
So what in the world is a Hodag?
For cavers, the Hodag is a mythical Cave Creature which is more or less invisible to humans – whether they are cavers or not. The Hodag is responsible for footholds that suddenly disappear, or the piece of breakdown that mysteriously shifts unexpectedly. Did you ever loose your gloves after setting them down while taking a break? It’s the Hodag stealing them! When you sit by yourself in the dark and listen to the sound of water coursing down the rocks, you sometime can hear voices. Well, it’s not your imagination – it’s actually Hodags trying to confuse you.
However, if you do an internet search, you can find other theories and ideas about Hodags. One of them is below:
The Hodag, a creature native to Wisconsin, has the head of a bull, the back of a dinosaur, and the leering features of a giant man. Its legs are short, its claws are long, and its tail is spear-tipped.
It is a supernatural beast. According to legend, in its first life it took the form of an ox that belonged to Paul Bunyan. Upon its death, the ox was burned for seven years to cleanse it of the profanity of its master. But seven years was not long enough. The soul of the ox emerged from the ashes in the shape of a Hodag, exuding a foul odor.
Eugene S. Shepard and a group of companions tracked the creature down to Rhinelander, Wisconsin where they succeeded in capturing it. After its capture the creature was displayed for many years at country fairs. The exhibition of the Hodag usually occurred in dim light. According to malicious rumors, what was actually exhibited was a large dog over which a horse’s hide had been stretched, but such rumors have never been substantiated.
The Hodag’s name comes from combining the words ‘horse’ and ‘dog.’ It is also known as the Bovine Spiritualis.
Jack Cory, editor of the Rhinelander Daily News, once hypothesized that the Hodag was “the long-sought missing link between the ichthyosaurus and the mylodoan” of the Ice Age.
Pictures showing a Hodag surrounded by men with pitchforks (similar to the one to the left) appeared on many Wisconsin postcards during the first decades of the 20th century. The same pictures also hung in many saloons.