TENNESSEE: “Bubba” Goes Out with a Bang
MT. JULIET, Tenn. – To say Harold Dee ‘Bubba’ Jones went out with a bang is a bit of an understatement.
Jones, of Lebanon, operated construction machinery and drove large trucks. He was killed in an accident June 23.
About 10 years ago, one of Jones’ friends, Joe Tomlinson, bought an authentic Civil War-era Confederate cannon.
(George Page • Lebanon Democrat) Friends and family scatter Harold Dee ‘Bubba’ Jones’ ashes using a Civil War-era cannon Saturday night at Circle P in Mt. Juliet.
“Bubba enjoyed using up my powder shooting it at the Circle P Ranch for special functions, such as the Mt. Juliet homecoming,” Tomlinson said.
Tomlinson, Jones and others got together April 13, 2013 and let fellow friend Paige Nash Morris shoot the cannon, knowing she would soon die from brain cancer.
On June 20, 2013, the group of friends started allowing others to shoot the cannon during a regular event used as a fundraiser to help the families of Ethan Page and Morris.
“Bill Sorey and Cindy Baker Collier won the right to shoot it at an auction,” Tomlinson said. “I then found out if you let one of your girlfriends fire the cannon, you have to let them all. You could tell by the smile on Bubba’s face it was special for him showing all of the girls plus his wife and one of his sons how to shoot it throughout the last year…always yelling right before they pull the lanyard, ‘fire in the hole.’”
At one point, Tomlinson said he wanted to be cremated when he died and have his two daughters shoot his remains out of the cannon. Tomlinson said Jones overheard the conversation and told his friend he did, too.
“I worked around the funeral industry earlier in life and read in the papers where people want to be cremated and their ashes strewn over their favorite fishing spot, on a golf course, out of an airplane, even in their backyard and many other places that were special to them,” Tomlinson said. “This made me think about what I wanted when I passed on.”
On Saturday night, Jones took a page from Tomlinson’s plans and got his wish.
“Fire in the hole was heard three more times,” Tomlinson said. “My friend, Lex Conatser, an experienced cannoneer, helped Bubba’s wife, Lisa, and sons, Tyler and Taylor, each shoot a portion of his remains over the grounds of Circle P, where Bubba helped so many have a once in a lifetime experience to shoot a Civil War cannon.
“Old friend, you got your wish. I know from now on when I hear thunder rolling in the heavens, it is you helping make it happen. Rest in peace, my friend”
Tomlinson said a memorial dinner also took place Saturday, and friends got together to feed Jones’ many friends and relatives.
“I have to thank all who made and brought food and desserts and helped serve all there,” Tomlinson said. “I also want to thank the Mt. Juliet police for answering all of the calls and explaining to all what was going on.”
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TENNESSEE: Battle of Franklin Flag Losing Battle With Time
FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Time is defeating a flag that last flew 150 years ago during the Battle of Franklin and donors are trying to come to its rescue.
‘Battle of Franklin,’ chromolithograph published in 1891 by Kurz and Allison, Chicago. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Preservationists need $6,500 to restore and conserve a 2-foot-by-3-foot flag last flown by Confederate Gen. John Adams during the Battle of Franklin. Adams, along with five other Confederate generals, was killed during the battle on Nov. 30, 1864, when Confederate and Union forces collided in Franklin.
The Tennessean reported that members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are seeking $6,500 needed to preserve the flag and slow the march of time.
The flag was made by an unidentified Mississippi woman in 1863, but little else is known about its history or markings. The Confederate flag was known as a headquarters flag because it was flown specifically to mark where a general’s headquarters were located.
Donated by Adams’ widow to the Tennessee Historical Society in 1907, the flag is kept today at the Tennessee State Museum, where curators hope they can restore the flag and keep a tie to the battle, which will celebrate its 150th anniversary later this year.
Made of wool and silk, the flag’s silk fringe has begun deteriorating more than expected during the past decade.
“We care about these tangible heirlooms from our ancestors,” Michael Beck, commander of the Tennessee Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, said in a statement. “We intend to do everything we can to be sure they remain intact for future generations.”
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TEXAS: Judge Denies Special Focus Plate
A sovereign justice ruled Texas disregarded a Sons of Confederate Veterans’ First Amendment rights in denying a focus for a specialty permit plate.
There are several states in a kinship that concede specialty permit plates ornate with a Confederate flag. And now there could be one more, Texas. Will Florida be next?
Probably not, nonetheless here’s why.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for a Fifth District that covers Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas ruled final week that Texas, that had refused to furnish a Confederate tab in 2011, was violating giveaway debate protections of a First Amendment of a U.S. Constitution.
It pronounced a state used “impermissible outlook discrimination” when a Department of Motor Vehicles deserted a focus from a Texas section of a Sons of Confederate Veterans.
This is identical to a sovereign justice preference in 2011 after a Florida multiplication of a Sons of Confederate Veterans challenged a constitutionality of Florida’s law that determined a specialty image program.
The pattern of a due Sons of a Confederate Veterans permit plate. A sovereign justice ruled Monday, Jul 14, 2014 that a Texas DMV could not demarcate a sale of a permit plates.
(Texas Department of Motor Vehicles / September 22, 2011)
That statute came after Florida denied a group’s bid to get a image in 2009. The justice concluded a module “implicates private debate rights” and “is unconstitutional to a border it grants a Florida Legislature option to decrease capitulation of an focus for a specialty permit image formed on a sponsor’s viewpoint.”
So since doesn’t Florida have a tab yet, like Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virgina?
The justice statute did not mislay a Legislature from a image capitulation process, so a Sons of Confederate Veterans would have to find adequate legislators in both a Florida House and Senate to approve a permit image before it could ever have a possibility to be constructed by a state’s Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
So while it’s legally probable in Florida, it faces a jump of politics and open opinion.
Back in 2011, orator of a Florida Sons of Confederate Veterans John Adams said, “The brag still exists and might be a stumbling retard to get around. The Legislature torpedoed a tab since it was politically unpopular with them.”
Texas on a other palm has a specialty tab module run by a DMV, circumventing legislative capitulation for particular tags.
Texas law states a DMV might exclude to emanate a specialty permit image if it considers a image to be “potentially disgusting to one or some-more members of a public.”
That’s a emanate a justice ruled was unconstitutional and that’s since Texas will some-more than expected turn a 10th state to underline a Confederate dwindle image in a nearby future.
The Texas profession general’s office, though, has pronounced it will interest a ruling, nonetheless many experts in inherent law, citing identical rulings in other states’ fights over Confederate plates, doubt that a many new statute will be overturned.
On a associated note, while Florida might be famous as a land of many specialty tags (the Sunshine State offers some-more than 120), Texas does a specialty image diversion bigger. The Longhorn State’s Department of Motor Vehicle website lists 373 specialty tags. You can get a image for state schools, nonetheless also those outward a state. You can get one for your favorite NASCAR driver. You can get on that says “God Bless Texas” and one for Dr. Pepper. You can even get one for RE/MAX – we know, a genuine estate association with a balloon.
The state, though, has recently implemented a new customary in that specialty plates contingency have during slightest 200 sales, so some-more than 70 are on a chopping block. Florida has a identical routine in place, nonetheless a threshold is most aloft – an normal of 1,000 plates sole over 12 months. Those that tumble underneath that threshold will be retired, nonetheless a 2014 law upheld by a Florida Legislature gives dual such plates — Hispanic Achievers and St. Johns River — a two-year stay of execution so to speak.
FLORIDA PLATE UPDATE
Two of a state’s existent plates are being redesigned and have new names.
As of Jul 1, 2014, a Sportsmen’s National Land Trust specialty image changes becomes a Wildlife Foundation of Florida and a Catch Me, Release Me specialty plate, that facilities a Guy Harvey painting, changes to Protect Our Oceans.
Two of a specialty tags authorized by a 2013 Legislature still sojourn distant from a 1,000 preorder aim before a Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles will start producing them for sale. As of Jun 2, 2014, a website (http://www.flhsmv.gov/specialtytags/PreSaleData.html) lists a due American Legion image with 116 presales and a due Big Brothers Big Sisters image with 92. Both plates are in a two-year probationary duration in that they contingency beget 1,000 preorders. That duration ends Jun 30, 2015.
Two of 2013′s authorized plates reached a threshold progressing this year and are accessible for sale. Those are a plates for a Freemasons and for Lauren’s Kids, that helps lift recognition of child victims of passionate abuse.
The 4 new plates authorized by a Legislature this year began their two-year presale duration on Jul 1, 2014. They have until Jun 30, 2016 to strech a 1,000 presale threshold. There is no presale date nonetheless for those 4 plates, that are for Fallen Law Enforcement Officers, a Florida Sheriffs Association, Keiser University and Moffitt Cancer Center.
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