This Week's Haul, July 30: We all need a place to be together

And: Go walk a donkey!

Liam Reading’s lovely mural on the side of The Together Place in Bangor.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where this week, I celebrated my 44th birthday by drinking margaritas and eating chips with guacamole and queso with friends in our backyard. We also had a little bonfire and burned two Christmases worth of wreaths which had been sitting in the back of the brush pile “curing”. They went up like a friggin’ house on fire! Well, no house on fire - coupla Lowe’s buckets full of water right nearby. Safety first, guy.

• I feel that I must alert you to the fact that there is a business in Searsport where you can pay a small amount of money to hang out and go on a walk with donkeys. It’s called Downeast Donkey Walks, and it is quite astonishingly adorable. I won’t deduct points for it not technically being located Down east.

• Congratulations to the staff of The Maine Monitor for the formation of a union, and the voluntary recognition by management that shortly followed! The News Guild - of which I am a former member - does amazing work supporting journalists and media staffers in an incredibly tumultuous industry.

• And happy birthday to the Belfast Co-op, which in August celebrates its 50th anniversary! I have been going to the Co-op for literally my entire life. As an OG member of The Game Loft (RIP), as a teenager, I ate a truly incredible number of snacks purchased from there. It is still my go-to place if I need a quick lunch in Belfast, and it has the best community bulletin board in Maine.

• As a survivor of the Great Bangor Coyote Invasion of 2024, allow me to offer the fine folks of the town of Bath some advice now that they too are seeing their pet cats are being made into feline sushi by local wildlife. 1. We live in Maine and wild animals are everywhere - even right in the middle of town. 2. If the people in your neighborhood Facebook group start popping off about how they are going to shoot the first coyote they see or that their “fur babies” just have to be outside, I recommend putting your phone down and going outside and screaming into the void. And, 3. Keep your cats indoors, or be prepared for this to happen.

It shouldn’t be quite so difficult for an organization like The Together Place, the peer-run recovery center on 2nd Street in Bangor, to keep its doors open and continue to offer its vital services to folks in the community struggling with their mental health and with substance use disorder. I would imagine that most of us with basic human empathy can agree that there should be free, easily accessible resources available to those folks, and that both challenges are directly connected to the ongoing homelessness crisis that Bangor has long struggled to effectively address.

Which is why it blows my mind that The Together Place, which for more than 40 years has offered these services, is struggling to maintain its offerings and even keep the lights on. It is the only daytime shelter for unhoused folks in Bangor right now, and in addition to its many peer-run support groups it also offers meals, art therapy and help with finding jobs and housing. These are the things that help people. This is how change is made - one person at a time.

Given that the City of Bangor - despite its professed plans to invest in these services - has yet to come through with any municipal funding, it’s up to us to step up and help save this important community resource. You can help directly by going to The Together Place website and clicking the donate button. I just donated. You should too.

Music & Dance

July 30: Belfast Summer Nights presents Primo Cubano, 7:30 p.m., Steamboat Landing Park, Belfast

July 30: St. John’s organ concert feat. Ray Cornils, 7:30 p.m., St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Bangor

July 30: Rebel Daughter, Americana duo, 6 p.m., lawn area, Ellsworth Public Library

July 31: Rik Eckstrom, singer-songwriter, 6 p.m., Marshall Wharf Brewing, Belfast

July 31: Peace Breaker, Last Hand Laid, Black Liquor and Cape Heart, 7:30 p.m., The Old Town Theatre, Old Town

July 31: Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

July 31: Joe Bonamassa and Gov’t Mule, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Aug. 1: Circus Mutt acoustic duo, 5 p.m., Fogtown Brewing, Ellsworth

Aug. 1: The Walrus, Beatles tribute band, 8 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Aug. 1: Hank Williams Jr, 7 p.m., Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Aug. 4: Cassatt String Quartet, 6:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, Belfast

Aug. 5: Barcelona, Spanish music ensemble, 5:30 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Aug. 5: Dirigo Strings roots band, 6 p.m., lawn area, Bangor Public Library, Bangor

Theatre & Comedy

July 30-Aug. 2: The Belfast Maskers present “Pippin,” nightly, Basil Burwell Community Theatre, Belfast

July 30-Aug.2: Ten Bucks Theatre Company Shakespeare Under the Stars presents “Julius Caesar,” nightly at 6 p.m., Fort Knox State Historic Site, Prospect

July 31: High Stakes House of Comedy presents Kelly McFarland, Jack Burke and Adam Hatch, 8 p.m., Hollywood Casino, Bangor

Aug. 2: A Grand Enchanted Evening, musical and theater showcase, 7 p.m., Grand Theatre, Ellsworth

Aug 3: David Sedaris, 7 p.m., Criterion Theatre, Bar Harbor

Aug. 5-9: Opera House Arts Presents John Cariani’s “The Darker The Night, the Brighter the Stars,” nightly, Stonington Opera House, Stonington

Arts, Books, Film & Culture

July 30: “Chekhov and the Art of Atmosphere: A Playwriting Workshop,” with Eliya Smith, 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

July 31: POP Studies series “How to Preserve Family Letters, Heirlooms and Antiques,” 10 a.m., Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport

July 31: “Salt of the Earth,” documentary screening and discussion, 7 p.m., Red Rabbit Bazaar, Bangor

Aug. 4: Author talk on “An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Field Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment,” by Cara Benson with Kathryn Miles, 7 p.m., Left Bank Books, Belfast

Aug. 5: Jonathan Fisher House Symposium, “Commemoration, Liberty, and the Abolition Movement,” 7 p.m., Blue Hill Public Library, Blue Hill

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Outdoors & Misc.

July 30-Aug. 9: Bangor State Fair, daily at Bass Park, Bangor, click here for full schedule

July 30-Aug. 2: Tall Ships in the lower Penobscot, feat. workshops, sailing excursions and more, from Bangor to Castine and Searsport; click here for full schedule

July 31: “Birds Love Bugs: Aerial Insectivores,” walk and talk with Maine Audubon, 8 a.m., West Penjajawoc Grasslands, Bangor

July 31-Aug. 2: Midcoast Gem and Mineral Fair, Bayview Point Event Center, Belfast

I’ve been reading up this week on a topic that’s been of perennial interest to me: the periodic attempts to do away with the twice-yearly time changes, and to institute at the national level either permanent Daylight Savings Time, or permanent Standard Time. The matter is once again before Congress, with the U.S. House passing a bill a few weeks ago to enact permanent Daylight Savings, and the U.S. Senate poised to eventually take it up as well, though its prospects for passage there seem much more unlikely.

This New York Times article went through the pros and cons of all three potential approaches - always DST, always Standard, or keeping the time changes - in a way that I thought was useful and thoughtful. It did not, however, help me come to any further conclusion about which option is the best - though I must admit, permanent Standard Time doesn’t seem particularly appealing, given that between May and July in Maine the sun would come up before 5 a.m., which is, in my humble opinion, too goddamn early.

With permanent DST, for at least several weeks out of the year most of the country would not see the sunrise until well after 8 a.m.; in much of Maine in most of December and January, sunrise would be closer to 9 a.m. That seems entirely too late, doesn’t it? The upshot would be that it would remain light outside until well past 5 p.m. for nearly the entirety of winter, which does seem nice - albeit literally cold comfort, considering how generally unpleasant it is to be outside in January in Maine.

We could also just keep the time changes, and accept that they are a pain in the ass and disrupt everyone’s schedules for a few days in November and March.

What do you think? It’s always interesting to hear people’s different opinions on what, if anything, to do about the issue. Is it inherently unhealthy that we mammals are often untethered from the natural cycles of the lifegiving sun? Is when you wake up in the morning simply a matter of personal preference or need, and whether or not the sun is present at that time is of no real consequence? Is it just something we like to bring up every so often when we’re a little bored and need something to argue about? I welcome your thoughts.