May 2026 Monthly Connection

The May Monthly Connection is ready — and this one has some range to it. Maine history, a lobster turf war, a candid look at what the White House actually thinks about housing, the spring market in Cumberland County, and a Memorial Day video that we filmed last year and can’t stop thinking about.

The May Monthly Connection

Every month we put together a curated collection of Maine stories, local news, humor, and market insight that we hope is actually worth reading. May is a natural fit for that kind of mix — it’s a month that arrives loudly, as Shannon captures perfectly in her Letter from the Editor, writing about a nearly 40-year Kentucky Derby-style family tradition called The May Party. If you’ve ever walked into a home and felt the full weight of the people who lived there, her piece will resonate.

On the history side, we spent some time with the Aroostook War of 1839 — a conflict that mobilized Congress, dispatched General Winfield Scott, and sent the Maine militia north, only to resolve without a single battle. It became known as the Pork and Beans War. The mud season comparison writes itself.

Closer to the present, a small fishing village 15 minutes south of Rockland became the unlikely setting for one of the more entertaining property disputes in recent Maine memory. The Spruce Head Fishermen’s Co-op and a Chicago seafood company called Mazzetta went to war over dock access. Mazzetta’s weapon of choice was a 45-foot lobster transport boat called the Jack Black, strategically moored to block the co-op’s loading station at the start of lobster season. The Jack Black, it should be noted, doesn’t run. A ceasefire was declared last week.

On the market side, the White House published its annual Economic Report of the President this spring — all 450 pages of it. Chapter 6 is devoted entirely to housing, and the numbers are genuinely striking. Real home prices are up 82 percent since 2000. Real incomes? Twelve percent. The typical first-time buyer is now 40 years old. We dig into the report’s diagnosis, its proposed fix, and the one number that made us pump the brakes.

Download a coy here: May 2026 Monthly Connection

Mortgage rates continue to do something quietly useful — they’ve been boring. After briefly touching below 6% in March and drifting back up, the 30-year fixed has settled into the mid-6s for most of the spring. We break down what that actually means for buyers and sellers in Southern Maine right now.

And for Memorial Day, we’re sharing something we produced last year — a video filmed at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, where over 7,000 Americans are buried far from home. Laura had to hold back tears while filming it. We’re sharing it again because remembrance doesn’t have an expiration date.

Laura provides a short introduction to this issue in the video below. You can also read the full issue here: May 2026 Monthly Connection.

We hope you enjoy it.