Leaving Cork February 27, 2016

The Cork Woman

My first piece ever, was published in The Irish Examiner.

Leaving Cork is something I’d expect to be getting used to at this point.  I’ve been doing it seriously for 21 years now. That first time was the worst.  Right before leaving for the airport my Dad and I took a walk down a country boreen by his house in Waterfall, and I waited for him to ask me not to go.  I would have changed my mind so easily then.  But he didn’t.  Instead he talked about the power of youth and opportunity, and the importance of being brave with your life.  That was all very inspiring of course, but what I really wanted him to say was, “Leave? Don’t be ridiculous.  Come back inside and we’ll have a cup of tea”. He didn’t though, and I sobbed and sighed all the way to Shannon, and then heaved my…

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“The Big J” – USS New Jersey

Deano In America

In my endless quest to see everything I have ever been interested in since I was a kid, I recently walked across the Ben Franklin Bridge over the Delaware River from Philadelphia, PA to Camden, NJ to see the mighty Iowa Class Battleship the USS New Jersey (BB-62) known as “The Big J“. She served from 1942 to 1991 and today this former US Navy Battleship continues on as a floating museum.

USS New Jersey (BB-62)

You can take a very informative tour to get a great understanding of the sheer size and firepower of this giant Battleship. She has a displacement of 45,000 tonnes, is 887 feet / 270.54 metres in length, with a beam (width) of 108.2 feet /33.0 metres, a draft (ships hull below the water’s surface) of 28.9 feet / 8.8 m and a crew of 1,921 (this would have been much larger in World War Two).

The view from the Ben…

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Cherry Blossom Time In Seattle