Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Greatest Hits

When artists or authors or networks run out of ideas, what do they do? They offer up a "greatest hits" or "best of .." or "classics" or a Christmas album. So who am I to buck this trend. What follows is my 1st annual greatest hits post, not to be confused with my best of.

The easiest way to assemble a greatest hits list is to pick the most popular, which with a blog are the posts with the greatest hits. Voila. And since my top posts always appear on the right panel of each post, it's copy/paste. Somehow these are the posts that managed to strike some chord that drew in a larger community.







Top 5 Posts by popularity.

1. The Lowry Latvian DPs   This is the story of a Latvian family fleeing their country ahead the Russian advance in 1945 and their harrowing journey across the Baltic to Germany, years in a displaced persons' camp and finally coming to Lowry, Minnesota under the sponsorship of Lutheran churches in the area.

2. WWII Lowry Area Honor Roll   This is my attempt to identify all the Lowry area men and women who served in World War II.

3. GHS 1927. Absolute Zero   This post tells the story of the unbeaten and unscored upon Glenwood High School football team of 1927,

4. Minneapolis Nordeast   This post the documents a bike ride through perhaps the most interesting neighborhood of Minneapolis:  Nordeast.

5. The Bank   This post recounts the history of Lowry State Bank and its tragedies.

A different list is the "best of", which is much more subjective and impossible for me to judge. So I offer not "best" but "fav's", my personal favorites - favorites for a variety of reasons.  Truth be told those in the greatest hits are also in my favorites list.  My top 5 ..

1. Othelia's Story - 95th Evac Hospital   This is the first in a series of 8 posts documenting the WWII experiences of my wife's aunt,  army nurse Othelia Rosten, from nurses training at St. Luke's in Duluth to North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, Germany and Dachau.

2.  Serendipity  This post is connected to the 95th Evac posts in a serendipitous way. It stems from a phone call I received from Wolfgang in Ebermergen, Germany who had found my account of Othelia's Story on the web and realized the 95th Evac had been encamped in Ebermergen for a time in 1945. Wolfgang realized this from the photos of Ebermergen I included in the post.

3.  How to do Lutheran.  A somewhat tongue in cheek, perhaps heretical,  look at the Lutheran Church.

4.  Immigrant Stock and My People.  My own family's immigration story and the more general story of immigration to Minnesota by thousands of others.

5.  The Tale of Two Pitchers   The story of a town ball summer when Paul Quitney of Lowry out-pitched Holloway's Jerry Koosman, who later won a World Series as a member of the 1969 NY Mets.


Well, maybe a few more ...

6.  Springtime in Minnesota   A comedy attempt - based on a true story.

7.  Philosopher For Hire  Another whack at a comedy routine.

8.  Herman & Dave's Excellent Adventure  Because I love baseball and adventuresome spirits. This is the tale of a 1929 driving trip by my great uncle and his friend Herman from Minnesota to Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., Philadelphia & New York City - to see baseball. Men after my own heart.

9.  6th Extinction.   A topic I am passionate about. Climate Crisis.

10. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  Just kidding.



Copyright © 2019 Dave Hoplin

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