Donna Galanti - Where heart and hope meet adventure!

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Bog bodies and my favorite day in Ireland!

By Donna Galanti

                                             🍻 💚  Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!  🍻 💚 

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One visit to Ireland 1970s

When I lived in England as a child, my parents and I traveled much of Europe. I recall Ireland as being green as a true leprechaun in my young mind, rugged and beautiful. I never kissed the Blarney Stone (I was too scared to hang by my feet to do it) but I did so many other wonderful things.

I caught a rainbow trout in an icy stream. I hiked through peat on a fog-covered mountain to bear witness to Saint Patrick’s Holy Well in Kerry. We walked all that morning through soft peat to reach a rough-stone well covered in statues and rosary beads, offerings left behind from visitors.

 

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Peat bog in Ireland. Photo by Amos from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Peat bogs are fascinating places that carry ancient secrets. Ireland is well known for its peat bogs – and the bodies preserved in them from the Iron Age and Roman period, between about 800 BC and 200 AD.

The term bog bodies (or bog people) is used to refer to people sacrificed and buried within peat bogs. The bodies were naturally mummified from the acidic peat that acts as a preservative and tans the skin like leather.

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Grauballe man from the 3rd century BC. Photo by Sven Rosborn .

Hundreds of bog bodies all over northern Europe have been found with evidence of dying from gruesome, violent ways: legs broken, throats cut, heads decapitated, arms hacked off, guts pulled out. The most recent bog bodies buried were soldiers killed in the Russian wetlands during the Second World War. Bog bodies aren’t just typical in Europe. In 1982 bog bodies were found in the wetlands of Florida buy phentermine that predated Native Americans.

One such Irish bog body, Old Croghan man, is believed to have died over 2,000 years ago. He was killed, decapitated with his body cut in half. Why were these folks tortured, killed, and buried in bogs? Were they sacrifices to gods to ensure good fertility or harvests? We may never know.

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Shoes of bog body Damendorf Man, dated around 2nd to 4th century. Photo by Bullenwächter.

 

Finding a bog body was never one of the highlights of my visits to Ireland (unlike the much prettier Roman mosaics we found on our bike travels through rural England). My favorite memory of Ireland is more idyllic: eating lobster on a sea cliff. After touring about all day down Irish country roads we stopped at a tiny, rural pub by the sea to find a good lobster dinner.

I couldn’t understand the thick accent of the pub owner or why my dad left with him. My mom and I waited in this pub for two hours. Finally, my dad returned with a fresh catch. The pub owner had taken him out in his boat to pull live lobsters from his ocean traps. We feasted on rich cold-water lobster that night. The next day we ate its leftover sweet, slivered meat as we hung from a cliff  and watched waves crash ashore on ancient boulders far below.

Memories of our visits to Ireland faded, but back home in the U.S. on Saint Patrick’s Day my mother would make her special dessert: vanilla ice cream covered in emerald green Crème de Menthe.

Someday I’ll get back to Ireland and I won’t be afraid to hang upside down and kiss the Blarney Stone. For now, I’m off to find a bottle of Crème de Menthe and let a treat linger that I haven’t had since a child.

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My mom and I somewhere in Europe

 

USS Battleship North Carolina: Big Guns of Fun!

By Donna Galanti

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Fun to see old footage of these big guns firing!

The Navy. Uniforms and big ships. Tight quarters and miles of ocean. Inspections and mess halls.

My dad was a Communications Specialist in the Navy back in the 1950s, and you can read his account of being stranded in Hurricane Hazel.

I was in the U.S. Navy too as a photographer back in the 1980s. You can catch my story of recruit training in my memoir, Letters from BootCamp. It’s a detailed narrative that connects two generations of sailors weaving in advice from my “salt of the sea” Dad who supported me and reminded me to, “Hang in there. Head up. Chest out. Back straight. And keep those shoes polished.”

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My son, Joshua, has been here 3 times!

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Manning those big guns!

I’ve since been fascinated by tales from sea and the gigantic ships of the U.S. Naval fleet.

One of my favorite retired Navy ships to tour is the USS Naval Battleship North Carolina, anchored down permanently in Wilmington, NC.

My dad lives nearby in Southport, where we got to watch the USS NC nuclear submarine cruise up the Cape Fear river to Wilmington surrounded by Navy and Coast Guard security. Very cool.

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The mess hall (in my day we had 20 minutes to eat!)

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Would you want surgery here? Hmm…

The USS Battleship NC became the first of 10 fast battleships to join the American fleet in World War II.

At the time of her commissioning on April 9th, 1941, she was considered the world’s greatest sea weapon. During World War II, the battleship participated in every major naval offensive in the Pacific area of operations and earned 15 battle stars.

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Ahoy me mateys! I see…an ice cream truck!

One day to visit the USS Battleship NC is not enough to delve into its bowels of history. From the big guns on deck to the mess hall, bakery, doctor and dentist quarters, engine rooms, captain’s quarters and more.

This self-guided tour is the most comprehensive I’ve been on with each area decked in original equipment and marked with its human stories throughout history. Don’t miss a trip here if you are near Wilmington, NC!

I am  working on the plot right now for book three in my Joshua and the Lightning Road series and guess where it’s set – at sea! You can bet my Navy experiences (and my dad’s tall tales from the Navy) will help imagine this new world. Gigantic ships? Maybe so! Big guns? Sounds like fun! 🙂

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I rule this spot! (And that’s one big anchor!)

Celebrating boot camp graduation

Celebrating boot camp graduation

 

 

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