Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront.

“Excited” hardly seems an appropriate word to explain the atmosphere that permeates this community as we welcome participants and visitors to our first, stand-alone Folk Festival, following three extremely successful years hosting the National Folk Festival in Bangor.

“Electric” may be a better way to explain how thrilled we all are to have you here and how charged up we are to help you enjoy yourselves, Friday through Sunday, along the banks of the Penobscot River.

Many people in the Bangor area – professionals and volunteers – have given countless hours to produce this event and, to them, we extend our sincere appreciation for all that they have done.

As a volunteer, I am sure I speak for the organizers when I express the pleasure and gratitude I experienced at seeing so many familiar faces waiting patiently in line for T-shirts and their volunteer instructions on a recent, hot August evening on the Husson College campus.

I was particularly pleased, standing in that line, to recognize so many neighbors and friends who, like my husband and I, are back in the volunteer lineup for the fourth straight year.

That’s a sure sign that volunteering for, as well as attending, the Folk Festival is a lot of fun!

We hope all participants of The American Folk Festival – the performers, crafters, artisans, food providers and their support staff, as well as all the visitors – will have a wonderful time and that you’ll come back again.

The Folk Festival times are 6-10:45 p.m. today; noon to 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27; and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, on the Bangor Waterfront.

Admission to the Folk Festival is free, and donations to the festival’s bucket brigade, to help defray expenses, are greatly appreciated.

On behalf of my husband, reunion chairman Ralph “Whizzer” White, and his committee, I extend a second, extra-special welcome to members of Bangor High School Class of 1955 who are in town this weekend to celebrate their 50th Anniversary Class Reunion.

A golf tournament, a tour of The Schoolhouse apartments in the former Bangor High School building on Harlow Street, a Friday evening gathering and Saturday banquet at Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono are on the weekend’s agenda.

The committee members specifically chose this date to coincide with The American Folk Festival, so you can appreciate that these are going to be three very busy, fun-filled days!

And there’s more!

My friend, Susan Carlisle of Bangor, who is chairman of “Hidden Treasures,” the Maine Discovery Museum’s 2005 auction fundraiser, sent me a brief e-mail this week.

She wants locals and visitors alike to know that, as of this week, treasure boxes for the auction can be viewed in downtown store windows “if people want to go down and check them out,” she wrote.

The 2005 auction, which is planned for Saturday, Nov. 5 at Spectacular Event Center in Bangor will feature more than “70 treasure boxes, painted and decorated, by some of Maine’s finest artists,” she explained.

The treasure boxes, to hold children’s most cherished objects, will be in the downtown store windows until Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 5.

The last of this season’s Vanderkay Summer Music Series features Craig Whitney presenting a lecture-recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, at the Blue Hill Congregational Church.

Whitney is an assistant managing editor of the New York Times and author of “All the Stops, The Glorious Pipe Organ and Its American Masters.”

The organist will play works by Bach and Widor and will be assisted by Deer Isle Congregational Church music director Win Pusey and Blue Hill Congregational Church music director John Ward.

For information about this concert and other programs of Blue Hill Congregational Church, visit www.bluehillcongochurch.org.

“On behalf of the Hammond Street Senior Center members, who recently had their annual picnic at Cascade Park” in Bangor, “we would like to thank those who maintain it so beautifully,” wrote Shirley Fontaine of Hampden.

“We are so fortunate to have this lovely park, open to all, just to enjoy.

“It was immaculate, the flowers were lovely, and the waterfalls were breathtaking.

“What more could one ask right in the heart of the city?”

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