Bowling Banner Sons Of Confederate Veterans Post office Box 2355Don’t forget your La Plata, MD 20646 membership Dues!! September 2013 Why do people still fly the Confederate flag? By Tom Geoghegan Editor: Brian Piaquadio BBC News, Washington 2013 Officers A row has erupted in Virginia over a proposal to fly a huge Confederate flag outside the state capital, Bob Parker—Commander Richmond. One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the flag can still be seen flying from homes Jim Dunbar– 1st Lieutenant and cars in the South. Why? Commander / Adjutant For millions of young Britons growing up in the early 1980s, one particular image of the Confederate Jack Brown- Chaplin & flag was beamed into living rooms across the UK every Saturday evening. Judge Advocate The flag emblazoned the roof of the General Lee, becoming a blur of white stars on a blue cross when Acting Treasurer Rick Hunt at breathtaking speed, the Dodge Charger took the two heroes, Bo and Luke Duke, out of the clutches of the hapless police in The Dukes of Hazzard. Quartermaster - Dennis Spears Thousands of miles from the fictional county of Hazzard in Georgia, it seemed like an innocent motif but in the US, the flag taken into battle by the Confederate states in the Civil War is politically charged - not a week goes by without its appearance sparking upset. This Issue Why fly the Recently, there’s been a row in Texas over car licence plates bearing the flag, a man arrested after Confederate Flag? shouting abuse while waving it at a country music concert, and the ongoing fallout from South Carolina flying the flag in front of the State House. Good Bye Mrs. Jones “If you’re going to be offended by a flag, why not the Union Jack?” Barry Isenhour Virginia Flaggers SCV Award Now plans by a heritage group, the Virginia Flaggers, to erect a large Confederate flag on a major road outside Richmond has drawn considerable fire from critics who say it’s a symbol of hate. Continued on Page 3 SCV CHARGE “To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, We submit the vindication of the cause for which we fought; to your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier’s good name, the guardianship of his history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles he loved and which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Remember it is your duty to see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations.” 1 From the Editor Well Howdy All!, So here we are fast approaching the end of our memorial event season and we welcome fall with less than a week of actual high temperatures. It really has been a pleasant summer. I missed the meeting on August 20th, so I don’t have any updates for you. My appologies as I had a death in my family and had to be out of state for the funeral. This is the first meeting I have missed since joining the Bowling Camp. Imagine that? I do know that it has to be getting close to dues time again. Update - So since last month I can pleasantly say that I have received a few emails concerning my comments and I am pleased. Lets just hope those who contacted me come to the meetings and bring up their ideas to the rest of the camp so we can share, vote and plan on any approved ideas. So let me share with you a person who was closer in my youth than in my latter years but who played a pivitol role in my growing up. It’s funny how time flies and we all get [email protected] so busy in our little worlds. Homage to Mrs. Jones My real grandmother on my mother’s side died before I was born and due to divorce I never saw my father or his mother. In steps the Jones’s. When my mother lost her’s the Jones were eager to take her in. They had 5 boys and no daughters so my mother was a welcomed addition to the family. Although my mother says she got tired of ironing shirts. Dick and Gladdis Jones married young and started a family, although I am unsure which came first. It is hard starting out as we all know and the Jones were no different. As my uncle Bruce said during the wake, “We never had much, but Mom and Dad gave us all we ever needed.” I don’t remember a whole lot before the age of 10 but I do remember the huge 4th of July picnics. You see Mr and Mrs. Jones were the only grandparents we ever knew growing up. Ham, Turkey with all the fixins and Grandpop Jones’s homemade baked beans (with Lima beans Ewww I never ate those as a kid) would line the tables. The older folks would drink beer and eat oysters, While the 12 grandchildren played with lawn darts or climbed the forbidden rocks, which are native to that area in Pennsylvania. Whenever we got caught on those rocks, however or something worse there was never any attempt to find out who the perpetrators were... We were all equally guilty and punishment was doled out in that way. We would be lined up in the kitchen and the dredded wooden paddle with the holes in it was brought out from it’s resting place on the wall....and we each got our just and not so just rewards. I remember my mother’s purple Dodge and her racing my uncle Barry in his 68 Mustang in front of the Jone’s house. I can remember Mrs Jones screaming at them to stop. They didn’t of course well, not until after they swapped cars and Barry’s exhaust felll off his car. When your young you don’t realize the importance of family get togethers and how they shape who we are. I was bored when I was at the Jone’s house. I hated going there as a teen cause there was nothing to do. Now I would give almost anything for another 4th of July picnic like that. Mrs. Jones was one of kind, a small woman thin with a laugh that reminded me of the Witch on the wizard of Oz... That being said I would’nt call her a loving woman. Instead most discribe her as a real “firecracker.” She never had a problem telling you like it was and well if you didn’t like it she would tell you “tough sh_t, then!” Definately one of a kind. I was glad that I got to see her a few more times before she passed. My grandfather died back around 2003 and she kept his urn on his chair in the living room along with his drivers license and she talked to him like he was still there. She may not have been blood but she was the only grandmother I ever knew and she will be missed. Thank you all and God Bless Dixie! Brian Piaquadio Don’t forget your membership Dues!! 2 Continued from Page 1 That’s not true, says Barry Isenhour, a member of the group, who says it’s really about honouring the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives. For him, the war was not primarily about slavery but standing up to being over-taxed, and he says many southerners abhorred slavery. “They fought for the family and fought for the state. We are tired of people saying they did • The first national flag of the Confed- something wrong. They were freedom-loving Americans who stood up to the tyranny of the eracy was the Stars and Bars (left) in North. They seceded from the US government not from the American idea.” 1861, but it caused confusion on the battlefield and rancour off it He displays a flag on his car but lives in a street where the flying of any flags is not permitted. They are a dwindling sight these days, he thinks, because people are less inclined to fly them • “Everybody wants a new Confederate in the face of hostility - monuments honouring southern Civil War generals are, he says, flag,” wrote George Bagby, Southern regularly vandalised. Literary Messenger editor. “The present one is universally hated. It resembles Denouncing the “hateful” groups like the Ku Klux Klan who he says have dishonoured the flag, the Yankee flag and that is enough to he adds that people should be just as offended by the Union Jack, the Dutch flag or the Stars make it unutterably detestable.” and Stripes, because they all flew for nations practising slavery. • Its replacement was nicknamed Annie Chambers Caddell explains why she hangs the flag from her porch the Stainless Banner (centre) and it Others strongly disagree with his analysis. African Americans, especially older ones, are incorporated General Lee’s battle flag, traumatised when they see the flag, says Salim Khalfani, who has lived in Richmond for nearly designed by William Porcher Mills 40 years and thinks it risks making the city look like a “hick” backwater that is still fighting the Civil War. • A third national flag, nicknamed the Bloodstained Banner (right) was “If it’s really about heritage then keep the flag on your private property or in museums but adopted in 1865 but was not widely don’t mess it up for municipalities and states who are trying to bring tourists here because this manufactured will have the opposite effect.” • After the war, the battle flag, not any “All symbols are liable to multiple interpretations but this is unique in its power” of the national ones, lived on John Coski Museum of the Confederacy Editor’s Notes: African-American author Clenora Hudson-Weens saw people waving the flags on the street in Memphis a few weeks ago.