jonmichaelrileynovels
Jon Michael Riley
Jon Michael Riley, Author and Photographer
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This book means so much to me - this was during a time of so much disruption and racial tension.
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Are you in the Asheville, NC area? If so, Thursday, March 29th at 6 p.m. I will be doing an Authors reading at Malaprop’s Bookstore & Cafe on Book #2 - the Channey Moran Action Thriller series. Come on by and say hello!
Visit my website today - I have the books available for purchase there as well.
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Test Post from Jon Michael Riley http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/author-of-photoshoot-malaprops-march-29/
Author of PhotoShoot at Malaprop's ~ March 29th
PhotoShoot ~ presenting, Jon Michael Riley!
Coming to Malaprop’s Book Store and Cafe, March 29th at 6 p.m. ~ Jon Michael Riley, author of PhotoShoot, an international thriller involving New York photographer, Channey Moran, who joins a group of mercenaries traveling to Somalia to rescue Americans taken by force from their sailboat in the Indian Ocean.
Channey’s job is to stage a fashion shoot as a camouflage for getting mercenaries in place to go after the pirates holding the Americans. The book borrows from Riley’s experience as a highly successful career photographer. Help celebrate this local author’s second book in this exciting series!
The true story behind this fictional rendition began when the 2009 hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama caught Riley’s attention in 2010. Inspired to write Channey’s next adventure, Riley investigated many resources including a memoir from survivors of a lengthy stay in the Somali bush and Jay Bahadur’s book about this time spent amongst Somali pirates.
Note to all attendees: Come enjoy a great cup of coffee, great atmosphere and learn more about Channey Moran ~ how he came about in the mind of Jon Michael Riley ~ and where he is going in book #3. Let Jon know that Judy sent you!
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/imagine-channey-moran-driving-old-alvis-cabriolet/
Imagine Channey Moran driving his old Alvis Cabriolet
I just got back from a ten-day trip to the beautiful Hudson River Valley, the southern part that stretches from about New Paltz, just south of the Catskill Mountains, down to Manhattan.
We stayed part of the time in Peekskill, a lovely town right at the edge of the Hudson Highlands. Once a blue-collar factory town, as many river towns were, it’s now gentrified and prosperous looking.
Known for its vibrant Irish Festival, called The Lower Hudson Irish Festival, that is held at the end of each September.
I can imagine Channey Moran driving his old Alvis cabriolet up to Peekskill, only a 35 mile drive from his Manhattan studio, to enjoy Peekskill’s beautiful riverside park, the Irish music, outdoor sculpture park and cool restaurants close by the train station. He’d love the menu and ambiance at the Taco Dive Bar right on a busy corner.
The view across Peekskill bay towards Bear Mountain, Mt. Dunderberg, and the Bear Mountain Bridge is not to be missed. The Appalachian Trail goes across Bear Mountain, then across the bridge and then ascends the north flank of Anthony’s Nose, the other mountain around which the Hudson River makes a sharp bend.
We also stayed in an Inn dating back to 1832 in Cold Spring, which is right on the east shore of the Hudson River. From there one has a good view of West Point, Crow’s Nest and Storm King Mountains, the highest (around 1400 ft.) in the Hudson Highlands.
While there I had time to ruminate of what will happen to Channey next; what comes after the end of Photo Shoot? I can’t say I have a definite answer, but here are some elements that I might be working with:
A late middle-age woman living in a Southern state has no idea who her birth parents were. Only that she was a product of the Irish orphanage system that took babies from their unwed mothers at the age of three months and sold to American couples.
Glennie MacDonald, from my novel Dream the Dawn, has an elderly aunt in County Kerry who wants very badly to find her child that she had to give up in the 1950s. Glennie’s aunt begs her to help find her daughter before she dies. The only real clue she has is that her daughter had a heart-shaped birthmark on her left arm and that the adopting parents were from Atlanta, Ga. Glennie’s aunt continues petitioning what is left of the now defunct orphanage to get any shred of actual information as to who the parents might be.
Glennie asks Channey Moran if he will help her track down this mystery daughter in the American South. He says yes.
The mystery woman (who does have a heart-shaped birthmark on the inner side of her left arm) lives in a rural area close to an electrical power plant that has old coal ash ponds, which are is a sad state, with leaks and failing infrastructure. If the pond walls break, it will be a disaster for anyone living within three miles.
A hurricane bringing torrential rain is coming up from the Caribbean. The power company has kept the sorry state of their ash ponds a deep secret.
The mystery woman’s husband, who might be part of the power company’s cover up, is an alt-right, Fox News watching angry old man who thinks Trump is just what our country needs. Being a climate denier, he ignores the weather forecasts as “fake news” to scare honest God-fearing Americans.
Channey Moran might use a drone to photograph just how bad the leaks are in the huge coal ash ponds. He is risking his life to get these photos and videos because the entire power plant is locked down and under armed guard as the hurricane approaches.
That’s just a bare story line that has been in my mind for a while. Seeing the movie, Philomena was important to me, a student of Irish history. I’m also a fan of the great actor, Judy Dench, who played the searching mother.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/photo-shoot-the-bizarre-2nd-novel-channey-moran-series/
Photo Shoot ~ The Bizarre ~ 2nd Novel ~ Channey Moran Series
I’ve been thinking of the word bizarre. Not the flea market sort, but things that look or appear to be bizarre. There’s plenty of bizarreness that surrounds the phenomena of Somali Pirates, their life and the monetary need for the whole business of pirating. This was one thing that I found fascinating while researching Photo Shoot, a story that reflects the world of Somali pirates.
What began decades ago as a simple but drastic measure to protect their own fishing grounds off the coast of Somalia became a surprise and lucrative opportunity. The Somali fishermen began boarding and confiscating commercial fishing boats from places like Japan and Indonesia who were taking huge tonnage of fish from the India Ocean close to Somali ports like Eye, Garacad, Hobyo and Harardheere.
Then it dawned on the Somalis that they could just as easily hijack a freighter or petrol tanker and the bizarre world of Somali pirates was begun. The lure of making millions of dollars on each hijacking was particularly alluring for a country so torn by tribal discord, war and perhaps more known, famine.
Closer to home I find it bizarre that we have a serial-lying adolescent narcissist in the White House bent on dismantling years of carefully crafted environmental protection laws, which were based on the best scientific information available. Add to that the attempted dismantling of hard fought social welfare and healthcare systems that is used and loved by almost everyone I know. The irony is that the people who are this huckster adolescent’s supporters are the very ones who will be hurt by dismantling healthcare reform. To me this is bizarre beyond words.
Being so recently steeped in what is going on in Somalia, a country on the thin edge of disintegration, with a weak and tenuous government, news media, writers, scientists and even professors as being a danger to our “American” civilization, is bizarre and clearly out of touch with the global realities. As the Huckster-in-Chief keeps braying, “America First!”
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/searching-for-cool-reviews/
Searching for Cool Reviews
To purchase your copy of “Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat” Click Right Here! Or click on the book cover!
Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat is a novel of love, desire, loyalty, and honor that affects the O’Rourkes, a relocated New England textile family who face entrenched white supremacy in a small North Carolina cotton mill town in 1960.
The narrative follows multiple points of view with the main character being high-school age Brian, whose near death experience leads to love’s exciting fulfillment.
Let’s see what a few reviewers think . . . .
By Dorothy Feltz-Gray . . . .
Jon Michael Riley has a gift for compelling narrative. In Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat, set in the early 1960s, he has woven together a coming-of-age story with one of racial injustice in rural North Carolina. As Riley does in an earlier novel, Dream the Dawn, he pulls the reader in immediately, this time with the violent rape of a young black girl. Riley proceeds to build a palpable tension between those horrified by the cruelties visited on blacks and those who see those cruelties as essential economic controls.
The story centers on a 16-year-old white Northerner, Brian O’Rourke, and his family. The O’Rourke, who have recently move to the South, don’t share the prejudices of many around them. Riley conveys Brian’s excitement about approaching adulthood, his sometimes touching, sometimes funny sexual awakening, and his confusion and sorrow that he, his family, and his black friends are victims of a hatred he can’t understand. The well-written, timely narrative will keep you reading, held by its well-drawn characters, drama and poignancy.
Undoubtedly a Great Read for Anyone by Shannon . . . .
This is a compelling narrative that takes place in the deep south of the United States during the 1960’s a time of segregation and most of the population fighting integration every step of the way, unable to give up their view of superiority. The O’Rourkes are an Irish family from the north that had faced prejudice aimed at the Irish so they did not have the same issues with integration as their neighbors did. This of course cause a rather large dilemma and the Klan was very willing to send a message of how people should act and the social place of whites and blacks. The Klan was not known for being subtle in their messages either, but rather violent and not opposed to causalities.
The novel is centered on the 16 year old son of the O’Rourkes. He participated in sit in promoting integration not understanding why the blacks had to endure such cruelties. There was some humor amidst all the turmoil in the novel. This humor was very relatable mostly surrounding the sexual awaking of Brian. His friends and he spend many night drinking and talking about who has slept with whom in the school along with fantasizing about sleeping with the Prom Queen. They all spend time praying to God asking for one of the women they crush on to accept them into their beds or at least a make out session. It is hard not to laugh at the young boys and at ourselves for knowing how they felt.
The novel shows how a town reacts to a family helping a black family friend and their daughter after she has been raped. The town does not respond in kind after they hear about this deed. They leave severed heads in their car of animals and it only escalates from there. By the end of the novel the family has no choice but to move for fear of the next Klan attack being a deadly one. But Brian does not leave empty handed at all two of his favorite ladies a gift that he will never forget.
Jon Michael Riley balances the humor with the serious seamlessly, the novel flows and is compelling all the way through. Undoubtedly a great read for anyone.
Click Right Here – to purchase your own copy of Searching for Cool ~ Praying for Heat
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This is the 1st in the Trilogy Series - Channey Moran is the main character and you will thoroughly enjoy this book - Take a peak, download - you can also find this on Amazon and Barnes and Noble - leave me your review
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Searching for Cool / Praying for Heat is an irreverent novel of love, audacity of youth, and loyalty amidst the sinister world of Southern white supremacy. A family is caught up in a scorched stew of entrenched racism in Legrand, a small North Carolina mill town in 1960.
The New England-transplanted O’Rourke family is horrified when the daughter of a Negro friend is brutally raped. In trying to help her, the O’Rourkes find themselves targeted by the town’s white leadership, the Pharaohs, who take revenge on Brian, the 17 year-old protagonist. Through a shifting POV, we follow the O’Rourkes, as well as the black Miller family, as Brian grapples with love, loyalty, and racist violence.
The original core of this story began as a brief memoir I wrote about my high school years. Although the novel has gone way beyond a memoir, some of the story actually happened.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/sacred-ireland-by-jon/
Sacred Ireland by Jon
Sacred Ireland how it began:
A few years ago I lamented to a close friend how difficult it was to find a publisher for A Longing for Home. Her reaction was to ask had I thought of doing a book about the sacred aspects of Ireland, and that many people would find this subject interesting.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? After all, I already had a good beginning with all the images now stored in our studio. And so I began….
From the Introduction:
At around a million people, Ireland is one of the smallest countries in the European Union. Yet this island of green is dense with rich layers of history, legend, folk sagas, heroes and villains, saints and spirits, colonization, skirmishes, uprisings, famines, plagues and wars of independence. Most have left artifacts, some sort of visual evidence that story this land.
These sacred places, anointed by reason of age, mystery, longevity or some sublime design, seem to be everywhere in Ireland. This is attested to by a careful scrutiny of any 1 inch-to-1 kilometer Discovery Series map. Barrows, raths , standing stones, holy wells, abbeys, hermitages, monasteries, famine and battle sites, notable birthplaces and monuments are densely arrayed across the land.
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An interview with Jon 3 years ago - Photography is his background and expertise - Ireland is another area that he explores and that is the setting for his Dream The Dawn mystery!
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/searching-for-cool-published/
Searching For Cool Published!
Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat is Published!
My new novel, Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat, takes place in a Southern textile mill town in 1960-61, an interesting, if not pivotal, time in terms of American Civil Rights and the struggle to end segregation and curb white supremacy.
It’s interesting that Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, came out in 1960, and I mention this fact in my novel. My main character’s father mentions Lee’s book in a dinner conversation. [The movie version with Gregory Peck didn’t appear until 1962.] More about this in a moment…
In April and May, when I was in final revisions of Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat, I worried the subject matter—race relations, Klan activity and right-wing race-based mayhem—might be outdated and of little interest to a wide audience. Not quite a year before, the Ferguson police shooting of an unarmed African-American young man occurred, soon followed by repeat behavior all over the United States. Little did I know how many more shootings and killings of African-Americans there would be.
After finalizing the edits, I struggled with how the cover should look. Should I or should I not use the Confederate Battle Flag as a visual element? Then two obscene race shootings in Charleston, SC, occurred and it became clear that using that contentious flag was something very germane to my story. It is a visual symbol of a particular Southern attitude.
Shortly after we got the first test print of the book, the South Carolina legislature—the whole state and much of the entire South—was embroiled in controversy as to whether “that flag” should continue to fly at the State Capital in Columbia. That debate was viewed globally with great consternation, particularly in the EU. In my opinion, only white Southerners could invent such tortured logic to “maintain the sanctity” of a flag that for over 150 years represented, and still represents, apartheid and white supremacy.
Now back to Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman, her new landmark novel set two decades after her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
That it has just been published is…well, let me quote one of my favorite writers, Vicki Lane, in her latest blog post:
“One would have to have been on a desert island or locked away from all media not to have been aware of the rumor of, announcement of discovery of, forthcoming publication of, publication of, and ensuing reaction to Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, the book she wrote before the beloved classic To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Vicki Lane’s blog addresses the tendency (perhaps even tenacity) of older Southerners to hold onto the “the old ways,” and is an elegant reminder of why, for instance, racism is still going strong here in the United States, particularly in the Southeastern states where I now live and where I was during my high school years.
Vicki Lane says it better: “In 1960 when To Kill A Mockingbird was published, it allowed white readers to feel good about themselves, to identify with Atticus in standing up for the underdog. (THE HELP did the same.) But WATCHMAN doesn’t produce that same good feeling — at best, it’s a wary accommodation of the changes in society. The white folks of WATCHMAN have gone from benevolent in their care of the ‘good coloreds’ to uneasy and suspicious of them all.” Thank you Vicki Lane for this!
At a recent potluck dinner with a couple in their 60’s who had been brought up in Eastern North Carolina, the husband told of going through all his schooling without encountering one African-American student. This is not surprising, of course, but it was the way he said it that got my attention. He had not one ounce of regret, or shame, or even consternation that that was the world he had inhabited. It was a simple fact of life to him.
In my case, I also attended totally segregated schools—this was the world we lived in—but I can’t begin to be blasé about it. It was shameful to have lived through and to have participated in and I was fortunate to have parents who voiced their displeasure about an entire population of Americans who had been disenfranchised and made into less than second-class citizens.
My parents are at the center of the story of Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/mini-twenty-first-century-odyssey/
Mini Twenty First Century Odyssey
I just experienced a Mini-Twenty-First Century Odyssey covering about one week.
After another revision on the book cover for Searching for Cool, Praying for Heat, I headed south to Road Atlanta—which is not in Atlanta—for the big vintage road race called “The Mitty,” sanctioned by HSR, Historic Sports-car Racing.
The track is wonderful for both spectators and for the drivers. Just short of two and a half miles, it goes up and down hills, has lots of tricky curves and two thunderous straights. Click here to view the actual race course! I could go and see all the corners from both inside the track and outside. There are tunnels and bridges for spectators to move about, lots of places to park and quite a few people camp there.
There are very good facilities and mini-busses that constantly circulate to take people to other vantage points. Think of a small LeMans-type road course.
The first of two highlights for me: A group of about seven 1970s European Formula One cars in their original livery.
Jackie Stewart’s Tyrrell
Graham Hill’s Lotus
Mario Andretti’s Indianapolis winning car, and others of equal importance. And these 40+ year old cars were out on the track blazing around at amazing speeds.
That was a time when Cosworth-Ford V8 engines dominated almost every race.
The other was the Can-Am cars, also dating from the 1970s and 80s. Best looking of them all is the Lola T-70s, and then the McLarens M-8s and the Ford GT-40s. These powerful V8 cars are a hoot to watch, 750+ HP engines screaming uphill, out of turn one. This was a thrill to see cars that were, at one time, the very leading edge of racing engineering.
After a longish drive, I found myself on the halcyon Gulf Coast community of Watercolor and Seaside. The beach sand is as white as it can be and to my astonishment, the water looked like the Bahamas, Tortola or the Virgin Islands. I wasn’t expecting this because of all the media attention to the Deep Water Horizon/BP oil disaster of several years ago. The whole place was lovely and pristine and I enjoyed it immensely, thanks to my very good Nashville friends, Kathy & Kevin Millen and their seaside condominium.
On my way home, I got to experience a Saturday night Art Crawl in downtown Nashville. The galleries were packed with people of every age, as well as the sidewalks crowded with gallery goers and street musicians of a very high caliber. One string quartet played Latino music that was entrancing. Another duo was a vibraharp player accompanied by an electric bass. Reminded me of Milt Jackson of the Modern Jazz Quartet. The weather cooperated perfectly. Clearly, Nashville is way more than country music!
Returning home is fraught with emotion. I see the mountains of Western North Carolina in the distance and I immediately become teary. This is where Catherine and I moved to from New York twenty-four years ago, a place where we were married and then the place where she died. At least she was “home” when it was time for her to leave her MS-riddled body.
I go outside and admire the amazing—and now huge—pink and lavender rhododendrons, the late azaleas still shining their colors, and all the rest that Catherine planted and I am overwhelmed. It is like she is still here, these colorful living spirit-like things, freely giving of life and joy and reminding me of just how fortunate I was to have spent my life with her. I have given myself permission to cry at times like this. It is now part of my journey.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/the-mitty-at-road-atlanta/
The Mitty at Road Atlanta
2015 Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty . . .
A little history: Historic Race Car Racing was formed in the mid-70’s with an event at Road Atlanta. There was one goal then and it remains true today: “to celebrate the race cars from our past!”
As a “time machine” of sights and sounds, HSR provides a venue for competitors and spectators alike to share in the wonderful history and excitement created by the cars that competed at race tracks around the world.
Vintage racing’s promise is to resurrect the past glories of sports car racing for a modern audience, and no event does that better than the Classic Motorsports Mitty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrUwZpVMsV0
This 3 day event is spectacular!
At most big-time races, when the cars come off the track, they’re hidden away. But that isn’t how things operate at the Mitty! Want a close-up look at an Audi R8, or a Porsche 911 RSR? Let me tell you, your senses will be overwhelmed!
Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty it’s an automotive festival:
Club corrals fill the Road Atlanta infield.
Free test drives are available.
Vendors offer amazing finds.
Hospitality is available for all.
And last but not least the Classic Motorsports staff is on hand to provide a behind-the-scenes look. And the grand marshal isn’t whisked from motorhome to motorhome, as he’ll be palling around with other race fans all weekend.
Yes, Come celebrate the odd, original and overlooked. Have a Cosworth Vega? Bring it. Edsel? Yes, please. Giant American station wagon? We’ll make room. Grassroots Motorsports Magazine and Hagerty Insurance have inexplicably sponsored this expansion of the Concours d’LeMons empire.
Full Weekend of Entertainment: In addition to the full slate of HSR-sanctioned historic racing, the Mitty weekend includes live music, technical seminars, infield camping, vendor row, amazing access, free paddock access, car club corrals, parade laps around the track, and so much more. And don’t forget, it all takes place at Road Atlanta, one of the country’s most exciting tracks.
This was a fantastic event. Hearing the stories, the history, watching the races – it brought back those memories!
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/wheres-jon-amelia-island/
Where's Jon? Amelia Island
Wow! The 20th annual ~ Amelia Island Concours d’ Elegance is March 13th – 15th – 2015! Jon will be taking photos and will be joined by Ellen Jones Pryor of Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts who are planning an exhibition of classic Italian cars in 2016. It will be curated by Ken Gross who did the fabulous Sensuous Steel exhibition of 1930s Art Deco cars.
The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is an automotive charitable event held each year during the second weekend in March at The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island in Amelia Island, Florida.
A New York Times article about “celebrity car ownership” listed “the nation’s top concours d’elegance:
Pebble Beach in California
Meadow Brook in Michigan
Amelia Island in Florida
Louis Vuitton Classic in midtown Manhattan.
Concours d’Elegance (literally ” a competition of elegance”) is like a beauty pageant for rare and elegant cars.
Each entry is rated for:
Authenticity
Function
History
Style and Quality of Restoration by a team of judges that includes specialists for each car type.
A perfect score is 100, buy any imperfection, no matter how slight, requires a fractional point deduction.
Classes are arranged by:
Type
Marque
Coachbuilder
Country of Origin
Time Period
Judges select first-, second-, and third-place finishers for each class in the event, and the judges confer the “Best of Show” award on one car from the group of first-place winners. In addition, a group of honorary judges — typically individuals who have made significant contributions to the automotive industry or motorsports — give subjective awards to recognize standout vehicles regardless of class ribbons, as well as memorial awards created to honor automotive industry personages.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/thoughts-selma/
Thoughts On Selma
Thoughts On Selma . . .
In my novel, Searching for Cool-Praying for Heat, I write about a Black sharecropper family, the Millers, and how the white main character’s family helps them.
In the background, the two Miller sons—Robert and John Henry—attend North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro. They write to their mother, Iris, and keep her abreast of the long-running lunch counter sit ins. Trying not to alarm their parents, they try to put a positive spin on what was happening there in Greensboro.
In the face of white intransigence with desegregating public facilities, a group of students at Shaw University, also in Greensboro, students created the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which became known as SNCC. This was in April of 1960. Notable is that John Lewis was one of the early leaders.
In another three months, the Greensboro government and downtown retailers agreed to desegregation. It took six months of continuous demonstrating to achieve this first step.
Then as the sit-ins were proved effective, hundreds of others took place all over the South. In July, Brian and Ed O’Rourke—characters in the novel—participate in Legrand’s first and most successful sit-in.
So it is historically correct to draw a line between these early organizers, including Dr. King, and all those who were part of the Selma marches during March of 1965.
By the time of the Edmund Pettis Bridge event, most of those people surrounding Martin Luther King had at least five years of experience with demonstrations. I like to think my characters Robert and John Henry were on that bridge fighting for justice.
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New Post has been published on http://jonmichaelrileynovels.com/merry-christmas-happy-new-year/
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Christmas is the time of year that families and friends gather. Seeing the children’s eye’s light up at that special toy or magical tree – that is what Christmas is all about. People come from all walks of life to bring joy to the children.
Toys for Tots – began as a Los Angeles charitable effort in 1947. Major Bill Hendricks, USMCR, was inspired by his wife Diane when she tried to donate a homemade Raggedy Ann doll to a needy child but could find no organization to do so.
At her suggestion, he gathered a group of local Marine reservists, including Lieutenant Colonel John Hampton, who coordinated and collected some 5,000 toys for local children that year from collection bins placed outside of Warner Bros. movie theaters.
Their efforts were so successful that, in 1948, Toys for Tots was launched as a national campaign. Hendricks used his position as director of Public Relations for Warner Brothers Studio to enlist celebrity support, as well as have Walt Disney Studios design the red toy train logo.
In 1995, the Secretary of Defense approved Toys for Tots as an official mission of the Marine Corps Reserve. Today you see the bins out everywhere and the Marines deliver thousands of toys all over the United States.
The Marines are not the only ones that collect and distribute toys, but they are the most well known. I thought it was interesting that Walk Disney designed the toy train logo for the Marines.
Wishing each of you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
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