Tickets are still available for the art auction to benefit Bangor Area Visiting Nurses and Hospice of Eastern Maine beginning with a preview at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 29, at Pilots Grill in Bangor.

According to Debbie Jacques of BAVN, 101 tickets need to be sold so the organizations can make as much money as possible from this event.

“We need to sell 101 tickets and, if we reach 101 people, we get a 20 percent commission from the sale,” Jacques explained. “If we get less than 100 people, we only receive a 10 percent commission on sales, so there is a huge difference for us.”

The auction will be conducted by Marlin Art Co. of New York, which offers a variety of art pieces priced at $35 and up.

Tickets are $10 per person and the evening includes hors d’oeuvres, a cash bar and music by the young, local jazz trio, “Three on the Tree.” Ticket information can be obtained by calling BAVN at 973-6550.

Money from events such as these benefit the patients, programs and services of BAVN and HOEM.

Among those services are providing free nursing care at the Bangor Homeless Shelter, a Senior Companion Program, and Pathfinders: Support for Grieving Children.

BAVN and HOEM remind you that reimbursement for home care and hospice is always a challenge, and that these organizations are committed to meeting the needs of their patients, regardless of their ability to pay. Events such as this art auction help to augment funds provided by Medicare, Medicaid, insurance and other means. So, count yourself among the 101, or more, committed supporters of BAVN and HOEM, and enjoy the art they have brought to Maine.

According to Anne Hathaway of Orono, for a half-century now, the Penobscot Valley Branch of the American Association of University Women has sponsored a used book sale in that community.

This year’s sale is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 7, in the vestry of the Church of Universal Fellowship on Main Street. Admission is free.

Funds raised from the sale go to local high school scholarships, book awards for nontraditional college students and support of the AAUW National Education Program.

Sale organizers are seeking donations of books and Hathaway writes that all donations will be most welcome.

To arrange for pickup of your donated books, call Sue Owens at 866-4892. You can also leave donations in the drop-off box at the Orono Public Library, located at Orono High School.

Prior to the sale, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, April 4-6, members will be setting up the sale and “all donations will be happily received” in the vestry while they are working there, Hathaway reports.

For those early-bird shoppers, she wants you to know a $5 donation will get you into the sale at 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 7.

Earlier this week, I had a delightful conversation with Harold Crosby of Bangor.

Crosby is one of the newer members of the Bangor High School Class of 1941 reunion committee. He recently sent a letter to alumni with information about their reunion.

“All the letters had 61st on them,” he told me with a chuckle, “and it should be the 60th reunion of the Class of 1941.”

And that wasn’t the only mistake, he admitted.

“Another error, where we listed the names of class members, made it look like one person was two.”

He explained that a blot of ink on the original draft of the letter was mistakenly taken by the typist to be a comma, so the correct name for one of his classmates is Elaine Enman Winslow Bean.

Crosby already has received a few comments about his errors, and he wanted to be sure he doesn’t receive any more. “It’s not the typist’s fault,” Crosby said. “It’s mine. I was just so anxious to get that letter out, I didn’t read it over before I sent it.”

Crosby believes the class may have numbered around 240 before “some volunteered and went off into the service” without graduating, he said. “We have approximately 149 members left, and we are hoping at least 80 of them will come to the reunion,” which will be held Saturday, July 21, in Bangor.

The next meeting of the reunion committee, which is open to all class members, is noon on Monday, April 9, at Pilots Grill. Future meetings are planned for Monday, May 14, and Monday, June 11.

Crosby said that before this reunion, planners generally numbered about six people, “but we had 17 at that first meeting. We couldn’t believe it.”

I had looked it up to make sure I spelled her name correctly, and then forgot to put it in Wednesday’s column about the Bangor Garden Show March 30-April 1 at the Bangor Civic Center and Auditorium.

Making a return appearance at the show will be award-winning gardener/author/comedienne Cassandra Danz, best known as “Mrs. Greenthumbs.”

Also appearing at the show will be author, public radio correspondent and The Learning Channel television personality Barbara Damrosch of Harborside.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, PO Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.