I started this article on Sunday, Aug. 25, just after I arrived at the University of Vermont when we (wife Mary and I) delivered our grandson for the start of his sophomore year. When I tried to connect with the hotel internet, this computer decided it didn’t want to play. Not only wouldn’t it connect, nothing worked. I tried to do a normal reboot and that didn’t work so I had to do a hard shut down, not a good thing for a computer. Starting it again made it worse. So, in frustration, I just left it on to do its weird thing and went to dinner with our grandson. After a healthy adult beverage, I began to feel better and my grandson drove us back to the hotel. I was in no mood to even look at the computer. Not sleeping well, I got up really early, went to the hotel lobby (didn’t want to wake Mary) to see just what my computer was going to do today. Well, the computer did decide to wake up, still wouldn’t connect to the hotel internet but did connect to my mobile hotspot with my phone. So, now I get to write and send this article…aren’t you lucky! But, it was a hard lesson on the need to frequently back up your computer. Most of us who are still active in the working world (even us volunteers) depend on your computers. Everyone is communicating these days via computers (and texting of course). The old days of writing letters and taking action with more written correspondence is long gone. Keeping up with our families via Zoom or other computer programs has become a regular thing. No one has encyclopedias any more ... a Google search will tell you everything you need to know. So, when your computer decides not to play nice, your heart goes into your mouth, breathing is difficult, and you wonder how you are going to survive! Just as soon as I get home, I’ll be backing up this computer for sure and will start doing an auto backup each night!

As I have written previously, the Hall is need of a resurfacing of the parking lot, new chairs, and the start of replacing the tables. We started the capital campaign but I am also hoping that there may be someone or some organization that might be able to donate their experience to resurface the parking lot and know of a company that would be willing to help donate chairs. Of course, financial donations will still be critical to achieving our goal.

Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. is the Maine Veteran Coordinating Committee first Zoom meeting of the 2024-2025 season and all are invited, contact me dapatch66@gmail.com, for the link. Attending will be the leadership of the VA.  I will be “Zooming” from the Hall so come to the Post meeting early (3 p.m.) and join me there. We will have time for some fellowship after the Zoom meeting before the Post meeting.