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He was shy and private. Adopted from the shelter, Goose had an unknown past. We didn’t know what kind of dog he was, his age, where he came from or anything about his backstory other than he was a stray picked up in California.

This week the Portland Sea Dogs announced the city-owned baseball park the team has occupied since 1994 was getting a cumbersome, new corporate name. “Beginning today, the facility located at 271 Park Avenue in Portland formerly known as Hadlock Field will now be Delta Dental Park,” a press release chirped. Um, no it won’t. For… Read more: Locals aren’t buying the Sea Dogs’ corporate name change

Performing the monologues, which swing between unspeakable tragedy and farcical comedy, is grueling, emotional work. But the group of young Maine performers, along with their older, more experienced directors, think it’s worth the psychological toll.

While cleaning out Pollard’s inner sanctum, his children found four cigar boxes. Inside, they discovered a version of their father they’d never known — a young WWII soldier, a risk-taker with a jaunty smile and a streak of wanderlust. They also learned of the woman he’d married before their mother.

Neighborhood dogs yapped, somewhere beyond the wooden fence separating Kevin O’Leary’s backyard from the rest of the world on Wednesday night.