One day last week, I succumbed to the pretty panic that is unique to getting ready for Christmas. I made a special trip to town and shopped at three stores for just the right containers to hold my Christmas cookies and breads. In the end, I spent $3.15 for pretty woven baskets on offer at the dollar store in the old Abbott Farm Plaza. The name was changed a few years ago, but I didn’t take note of the new.

That urgent mission took me almost two hours! All the same, I was feeling pleased and moving right along, even on our bumpy road. Bump, bump, bump. Feels like Dr. Seuss.

In my haste, I went right by the scene at the roadside, but its oddity gave me pause, and I stopped and backed up.

The man I’d glimpsed going by, I now saw, wore orange protective gear.

Nothing unusual in that sight, a workman in the road. What was odd, to me at any rate, was that he was holding a maybe 7-foot pole with something disk-like affixed to its top. On the pavement before him was a newly painted white T. Not a proper T, because its top bar is longer than your average T while the vertical is shorter. It’s still there, as is its twin about half a mile farther down the road.

I rolled down the window.

“What in the world are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking aerial photos,” he replied.

“Why? For the town?” I asked.

“No.”

Nice fellow, glad to explain. Seems that people who have bought land on the ridge above our road want to have a topographical map of their holdings.

The man in the road with the newly painted chubby T and the odd pole was taking aerial photographs to accomplish that purpose.

Of course I wasn’t in our driveway 10 seconds when the scene faded. There was the pressing business of packing baked goods, and I had a lot of gift wrapping to do, still more baking and Christmas cards….

But later that afternoon, the scene returned, and I told my husband about it. He conjectured that a satellite was receiving signals from the disk-capped rod. If he’s right, aerial photos are still aerial, I guess.

Dave Kimball thought the folks could have saved a lot of money if they’d taken advantage of all the topo maps online. We guessed maybe they just wanted their property, larger scale.

Whatever you think of someone wanting such a map, the fact that they can get it – the nice guy doing work was matter-of-fact – is stunning. New technology? Maybe not. But this was a change that sneaked up on me. Or did it?

Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention. Why was I surprised when I looked out from the summit of Whitecap the summer before last on a network of roads to the surrounding hilltops and houses upon them? Why can’t I remember the new name of the former Abbott Farm Plaza?

A rousing anthem in the Unitarian/Universalist hymnal contains the line: “Don’t be afraid of some change….”

Good advice, to be sure. But so is: Pay attention!

Linda Farr Macgregor lives with her husband, Jim, in Rumford. She is a freelance writer and author of “Rumford Stories.” Contact her: [email protected]