EEPROM help

Ah ha - so adding ( ) around the shift will likely resolve it

EEPROMend = (highEEPROM<<8) + lowEEPROM;

Will give that a try.

Got a bigger problem right now - I did something, and can't figure out what, while trying to set a couple of variables based on EEPROMend being 0/0xffff or not.
Not sure
I'm getting this compile error:

eightx32display_progmem_eeprom.cpp:95: warning: only initialized variables can be placed into program memory area
eightx32display_progmem_eeprom.cpp: In function 'void setup()':
b_setup:4: error: expected primary-expression before '=' token

which highlights the first line f void setup, but the problem seems to be sooner.
Any ideas?
May have caused a typo as I was mousing around, but I can't find it.
Let me post this and add a second post of the pre-setup code that I think is causing the problem.