This Week's Haul, Dec. 4: You'll be jolly! And YOU'LL LIKE IT
And: Save the giant Down East fisherman!
Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, as is custom, people forgot how to drive in snowy weather during the first winter storm of the year. It happens every year, even to Mainers that theoretically should know better.
Trump’s racist and reprehensible comments about Somali immigrants are truly sickening. I am afraid for our friends and neighbors of Somali descent in Lewiston and elsewhere around Maine.
The Boston Globe asked why Maine isn’t redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections. Bangor state representative Laura Supica correctly responded to their inquiry by saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. If redistricting one House seat in Maine is the thing that is supposed to save democracy, well, then democracy is [expletive].” Golly gee, I wonder what the expletive was?
The New York Times said this store in Portland that sells $100 t-shirts is one of the best places to shop for clothes in the country. Do you agree?
After a slightly rocky start with the Dallas Mavericks, Maine’s own Cooper Flagg is now proving that he’s deserving of all the overwhelming praise and high expectations placed on him to be The Next Big Thing.
A new taco and burrito joint has opened at the former Friar’s Bakehouse location in downtown Bucksport! Salsa Shack opened last weekend, after a successful run as a food truck. Good luck to them!
Help the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport restore Big Jim, the gigantic Maine fisherman wooden cut-out that stands before the former Stinson Sardine Cannery in Gouldsboro! If they can raise $30,000, Big Jim will move to Waldo County, where he’ll be spruced up and then displayed in front of the museum starting next year.
Bangor’s West Market Square holiday tree is really pretty this year. In fact, all of downtown looks great this season; many kudos to all the volunteers, businesses and sponsors that make it happen. Unfortunately, the tree is also playing canned Christmas music on a loop all day, as it did last year. I don’t know why this is happening again, after nearby residents complained in 2024 that it was, you know: driving them crazy. Nobody asked for this. Downtown Bangor is not a TJ Maxx. The tree is enough. It doesn’t need a soundtrack. Just let people enjoy the holiday season without, essentially, repeatedly telling them that they are NOT JOLLY ENOUGH, DAMMIT.
It’s the dark times. The sun is gone by 4 p.m., and most people in Maine get done with their work day in the dark. 100 years ago, however, during a special election, Bangor residents voted for the fourth time to scrap Daylight Savings Time. Four times! In 1922, 1923, 1924 and then again in 1925. Each time, Bangorians rejected Daylight Savings. And each time, the rejection failed to actually take root, since so many other towns in Maine and most other places across the nation had already adopted it. By the end of the 1920s, most of Maine’s opposition to the time change had petered out - though Bangor, with its history of rejecting not just Daylight Savings Time but the concept of time zones and standardized time in general, lasted a little longer than most.
Music & Dance
Dec. 4-6: Weekend of introductory samba and capoeira workshops in Bangor and Orono; Dec. 4, 6 p.m., Bangor; Dec. 5, 6 p.m., UMaine; Dec. 6, all day, Orono; for more information, visit capoeiramaine.com.
Dec. 4: Soweto Gospel Choir, 7 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono
Dec. 4: “Nashville Noel: A Country Christmas,” musical showcase, 7 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
Dec. 5: Singer-songwriter Louisa Stancioff, 7 p.m., Underground Lounge, Belfast
Dec. 5: Dead In Your Eyes, LNTRNS, Earthwyrm, 7 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Dec. 5: Widows Club and Snake Lips with guests, 7:30 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor
Dec. 6: The Eli Young Band, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
Dec. 6: Sanctum Obscura goth night, 8 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town
Dec. 6: Latin dance night, 9 p.m., Happy Endings Martini Bar, Bangor
Dec. 7: Yuletide Celebration concert with UMaine choral ensembles, 3 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono
Dec. 7: Bee Parks and the Hornets, kid’s music show, 3 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor
Theatre & Comedy
Dec. 4-28: Penobscot Theatre Company presents “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” Wednesdays-Sundays daily, Bangor Opera House, Bangor
Dec. 4-21: Improv Acadia presents “Another Kick In Your Dickens,” holiday improv comedy show, Thursdays-Sundays, Bangor Opera House, Bangor
Dec. 4-6: “How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Musical,” nightly at the Grand Theatre, Ellsworth
Dec. 5: National Theatre Live presents “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” 7 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono
Dec. 5: Comedy night featuring Adam Hatch and Crystal Bernard, 8 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor
Dec. 7: Meredith Wilson’s “Miracle on 34th Street,” touring musical, 2 p.m., Cross Insurance Center, Bangor
Dec. 7: Bangor Ballet presents “Nutcracker in a Nutshell,” 2 p.m., Gracie Theatre, Husson University, Bangor
Arts, Books, Film and & Culture
Dec. 4: “Covering Russia’s Borderlands During War,” a talk by Maine journalist Levi Bridges, 6 p.m., Bangor Public Library, Bangor
Dec. 4: Open watercolor painting session, all levels are welcome, 6 p.m., Brewer Community Center, Brewer
Dec. 4: Global studies scholar Nadia El-Shaarawi author talk on her book on the Middle East “Collateral Damages,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill
Dec. 5: Downeast Visions presents a screening of “Growing Wild,” documentary about Maine wild blueberries, 5 p.m., IMRC Center, University of Maine, Orono
Dec. 6: Winter Art Factory, all ages art-making party, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Zillman Art Museum, Bangor
Dec. 6: “Ten Inch Movie Stars,” workshop on creating a stop-motion movie, 11 a.m., Ellsworth Public Library, Ellsworth
Dec. 6: Sailor’s knot wreath making workshop, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport
Dec. 7: Balsam wreath making workshop, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden
Dec. 7: Birch bark basket making workshop, 1-4 p.m., Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holden
Dec. 10: Hoppily Ever After romance book club reads “Holiday Ever After” by Hannah Grace, 8 p.m., Bookspace, Columbia Street, Bangor
Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.
Dec. 4: Holiday Art Market, Dec. 5-6, Waterfall Arts, Belfast
Dec. 5-7: Island Arts Association annual holiday arts and crafts fair, all weekend, Atlantic Oceanside Hotel & Events Center, Bar Harbor
Dec. 5: Owl Prowl guided walk, 5 p.m., Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, Old Town
Dec. 6: Festival of Lights parade, 4:30 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor
Rest easy, Charles Norman Shay, the World War II hero who saved lives on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, and who in his later years was a steadfast advocate for both his follow WWII veterans, and for his people, the Penobscot, and the many Native Americans who fought in the war. He was 101 years old. He was a great man.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, only around 45,000 of the 16.4 million Americans who served in World War II are alive as of late 2025. The youngest possible WWII veteran - a 17-year-old that managed to enlist with their parents’ permission in 1945 - would be 97 years old right now.
It must be similar to how people felt in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the last of the Civil War veterans passed away - a time that once felt tangible and within living memory, now slipping away into the tapestry of history. How will their memories guide us? Will the lessons we learned from those wars and those people stay in our hearts and minds? Or do they fade into the background, until we forget their urgency and begin making the same mistakes? I won’t forget. I hope enough people remember.