A reminder that the Honor Flight Welcome Home Celebration at the Jetport is this Sunday, April 30. Free parking is available with shuttle buses from the State Office Building, 151 Jetport Blvd. The Volunteer Jazz Band will entertain us while we wait for our veterans to “parade/roll” into the celebration area.

Our Legion baseball team is now official, the 36ers are here! Team player registration will commence in mid-May with the specifics on how to sign up to be provided in the near future. This team is for essentially high school age players, or 19 and under. We are recruiting players from all over Lincoln County so spread the word! The home games will be played on the BRHS baseball field in the evening under the lights. Typically, the games are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

American Legion Baseball was established in 1925 with the first National tournament in 1926. Since then, over 300 Legion player alumni have gone on to the Majors, including Hall of Famers Ted Williams, Joe Medwick, Stan Musial, Roy Campanella, Lou Boudreau, Yogi Berra, Early Wynn, Warren Spahn, Ralph Kiner, Robin Roberts, Bob Lemon, Eddie Mathews and Carl Yastrzemski. In short, Legion baseball graduates are proud contributors throughout our society and often are the most successful people in their respective career fields. We look forward to great community support and lots of folks at the games. Plan on eating dinner at the concession stand as it will be one of the teams many fund raising efforts. We Legionnaires of Post 36 are proud to bring Legion Baseball to our community!

The good news is that effective May 1, masks will no long be required within Togus except for the wards and the CLC. There will be no change to the entry points however. Last week, I met with our new Patient Advocate, Kristin Adams (207.623.5760). As previous announced, Kylie Higgins, the new veteran experience officer oversees the Patient Advocates and the My HealtheVet and Online Experience Coordinator, Mike L'Abbe (207-512-6983). Most importantly, I found out where their offices are. In building 200, the double doors by the main elevators goes into the area where now Kylie, Kristin, Mike, and the second new patient advocate (who hasn’t arrived yet) have their offices. They do have an open-door policy so as long as their office door is open, stop in and say hi. I have also learned that each primary care team has a social worker who is available to help veterans navigate their continuum of care. I wish I knew about that a long time ago. So, if you are a veteran or a care giver and you are uncertain as to what VA services are available as you get older and what the processes are to getting those services, the PC social worker for your specific PC practitioner is the one to talk to. I met my PC social worker last week.

The next Legion breakfast is May 7.