Ten years later Archives

It has been nearly ten years since I began writing about my hometown of Youngstown. Thankfulness is a true expression of what I feel for the richness of our town’s history, culture, physical places, and especially it’s food. I am also thankful for all the people I’ve met both in person and online who get why Youngstown has been such a great place for so many who grew up there. Along the way, I’ve learned SO much that I didn’t know during the 22 years I lived there.

Ten years of articles. Nearly 500 articles! That’s a lot of articles. Here, in one place, are your favorites. Each year, under a several different titles, I’ve listed the ten most viewed posts of the year–your favorites. To celebrate ten years of these, I’ve created a list of links by year to those “Top Ten” posts. Click on the year and it will take you to the list of Top Ten Favorites for each year. I also say a bit about some of the favorites for that year and link to the top viewed post for that year.

2014. I did not create a Top Ten post for my Youngstown posts for that year so no link. The top ten were: (10) Walking (9) Christmas Baking (8) Diaspora (7) Football (6) Restaurants (5) Wedgewood Pizza Columbus (sadly since closed) (4) Canfield Fair Food (3) Neighborhoods (2) Pizza. Your favorite of 2014: Food

2015. This “Top Ten” post itself became the most highly viewed post I’ve ever written. Among the articles was one on Neighborhood Bars (still often viewed), Pierogies, WHOT, Front Porches, and Cookie Tables. Your favorite of 2015: Kolachi (still a holiday favorite!).

2016. Some of your favorites were articles on Holy Name Church and School, Shopping Plazas, Spinning Bowl Salads (with the owner’s dressing recipe), The Silver Bridge, and Wedding Soup. Your favorite of 2016: Haluski

2017. You liked posts on Iconic Places (lots of pictures), Coal Mining, The Civil War Soldiers Monument, Jay’s Famous Hot Dogs, Italian Food, and Sides of Town. Your favorite of 2017: The View From Home. The image for this article was from a painting called “Morning Drive” by talented local artist Christopher Leeper, showing a view of the Valley from Mahoning Avenue, just west of Portland, the street on which I grew up. We now have a print of that picture in our home–it was the view I saw every day (and now still see!).

2018. Some of the top viewed posts from this year included The Great Thanksgiving Storm of 1950, Boots Bell (I received a t-shirt with an image of Boots from his daughter after that one!), Brier Hill (before it was a pizza), The Great Flood of 1913, and Brownlee Woods (where my wife grew up). Your favorite of 2018: Salt Springs (which includes a map printed by Ben Franklin in 1755 showing its location).

2019. The George Borts Farm, articles on Oak Hill and Calvary Cemeteries, Esther Hamilton, George Renner, Jr. (the owner of the Renner Brewery), The Blizzard of 1978, and Zedaker Farm were all popular articles. Your favorite of 2019: Southern Park Mall.

2020. You liked articles on Elijah Boardman, John Struthers and the Simon Family. Two greats from my alma mater, Chaney High School, were like by others, one on football great Frank Sinkwich and one on coach and teacher Ed Matey, who passed shortly before the post was written. A post on the 1918 Pandemic in Youngstown drew a number of views in this first year of the pandemic. Your favorite of 2020: Liberty Township.

2021. Some of the popular articles from this year included the story of Caroline Bonnell, a Titanic survivor from Youngstown, posts on South High School, the Village of Poland, and Gypsy Lane (which got its name from real gypsies. I found out that there were many names of Slumgullion. You loved a story on Youngstown as a Front Porch City. Your favorite of 2021: Pat Bilon (the Youngstown actor who played E.T.).

2022. You were interested in the story of the Indian Scout Statue in front of the Butler, the inspiring life of Sue Thomas, deaf from 18 months who became an FBI investigator and the inspiration for a TV series, the brilliant and tragic life of Elizabeth Hartman, the history of Chaney High School, What We Did on Cold Winter Days, and the story behnd the Old Rugged Cross in Lake Park Cemetery. Your favorite of 2022: The Underground Railroad.

2023. This past week I posted your favorites of 2023 which included a feature on the Corneerburg Neighborhood, the story of Youngstown actor Joe Flynn, a brief history of Woodrow Wilson High School, stories about John A. Logan and the Shields family, and how the term “devil strip” is somewhat unique to Youngstown and northeast Ohio. Your favorite of 2023: East Palestine (written shortly after the major rail derailment).

I hope you enjoy this look back at some of the all-time favorite articles, perhaps during half-time in one of the bowl games or a quiet time between New Year’s festivities. I enjoyed this walk down memory lane and was reminded both of how much we love our food and how curious we are about our history. And I look forward to learning more and interacting with you all about our home town of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley in 2024. Happy New Year!

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

A few weeks ago I received this notification from WordPress. It’s hard to believe that this experiment has turned into ten years of writing! I thought I’d share a few of my reflections on blogging, kind of my top ten thoughts (or perhaps the first ten).

10. Apropos, I discovered that people like lists and these have been popular over the years.

9. The “Growing Up in Youngstown” posts were unplanned. I thought I would write my response to a question people could ask to learn things about me they probably didn’t know, which was “what was it like to grow up in working class Youngstown?” When I wrote a second post on food and it went viral, I decided there was something here.

8. I’ve learned that not only our memories but our history in a place are important. I’m convinced schools ought to have a semester on local history so people know the story of their place, and perhaps learn to care more about perpetuating the best and to avoid the mistakes of the past. Youngstown has often been know for rust and the mob. There is so much more and I’ve loved mining the riches of our local culture, people, and history.

7. Writing book reviews are probably the easiest, because I’ve been thinking about them while reading the books. The Youngstown pieces are the hardest–coming up with an idea (especially after nearly ten years), researching it, finding usable images or getting permissions. The writing is the fun part–most of the time, I’m trying to weave all I’ve learned into a story.

6. One of the surprises in all this are the wonderful (for the most part) people I’ve met–people who have helped with information about articles, publicists for book publishers, and authors, in most cases grateful for the time and care you took with their baby. I would especially single out followers, including people I meet who tell me they have been following for years and found some books they really liked. The others are family members of some of the people I’ve written about who write and tell me they are grateful that someone remembered their loved one and the contribution they made in their time. That means so much. Over a lifetime, I’ve become so aware that we all stand on the shoulders of others, yet so often forget to tell their stories.

5. I’ve learned to appreciate the craft of writing reviews and the people who do this for a living (believe it or not, I just do this because I love books, love encouraging others to read, as well as love getting at least some of my books for free in exchange for the review!). It’s a constant challenge to say enough about a book so that people can decide whether or not they want to buy it and not so much that they feel no need to! For some, any plot information is a “spoiler.”

4. I probably did not choose the path to fast blog success. I write a lot about theological books, but also about contemporary novels, poetry, science, other non-fiction including history, biography, and contemporary affairs. I’d probably do better if I stuck to one of these niches, or just wrote about Youngstown. I’m glad, over the years to find other book omnivores who are interested, or tolerate my own omnivorous reading tastes. And that’s without a lot of the provocative fireworks that drive social media engagement at the expense of manipulating emotion.

3. What I have tried to do is just keep showing up, writing a post six days a week (I take Sundays off and re-run a Youngstown post in Youngstown groups). I’ve tried to be consistent. At some point, I may transition to four a week, but will try to maintain a consistent rhythm. People like consistency!

2. I think the blog on the whole is one of the best parts of online media, even though other media have arisen. I’ve found the support by WordPress far superior to other social media sites, many of which you cannot reach for support–even if they have taken some action against you–which has frustrated many of my friends. And by and large, the trolls have been almost non-existent and WordPress uses really good spam-filtering software. They make it easy to do the one thing you came to do–blog!

1. Finally, I’ve touched on this throughout, but you have made this a joy. I so appreciate those who comment and share their own knowledge, which often surpasses mine. Some of you have put me on to books and authors I would not otherwise have looked at. I hope I have returned the favor. Thank you.

And for those who geek out on statistics, here are a few you might enjoy (all are as of this writing):

Total views: 1,647,007

Total visitors: 1,133,063

Number of posts: 3,218

Number of reviews: Approximately 1700

Top post ever: Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Top Ten (about 22,000 views)

Top review post ever: A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny (5600 views)

Number of words written (all time) 2,367,684

With that, I think I’ve said enough. Thanks for joining me on this journey!