Winding north on Route 26 on our time-worn way from Boston or Portland or places even farther south on Saturday, I began to think about my New Year’s resolution to accept change. I do not feel as if I have to embrace all change.

My train of thought left the station as we turned left off the ramp at Gray and wound along that strange stretch of road to Route 26 proper. It was not long until we were climbing the much-changed road through New Gloucester and the naked backsides of farmhouses and Shaker buildings. More change.

Down the first big hill into Poland, the old roadhouse fondly remembered by many River Valley folks as a dance destination has been demolished, the deep woods behind it clear-cut and sporting the inevitable “lots for sale” sign.

On we go. On the north side of Poland, just before the oversized high school, a nice-looking pair of future commercial-space buildings are nearly complete on the site of the former Just Friends restaurant. We always loved that place.

Up the hill (I think we’re still in Poland), the old Ram-Ewe farm has, apparently, been sub-divided into house lots. Grumble.

We were waving to the elk herd in West Paris when – this is how an odd mind works – I began to think of other kinds of changes. A coming-of-age adventure was when fledgling pilots would fly their craft down the Androscoggin River to the Falls and under Morse Bridge and then under Memorial Bridge.

It’s about six miles from West Paris to the turn onto Route 232, enough time for me to think back to some of what I learned in interviews for “Rumford Stories.”

Flying has been a sporting pleasure around here since, as Dick Theriault explained back then, men who flew planes in World War II returned, and turned their war-time skills to fun and profit. Hence the late Mr. Dyer’s airport in Rumford Point, fondly known by some as Rumford Point International Airport.

The turn onto Route 232 will always be the sweet moment in our return. If the season is right we’ll see old friends leaning back in their chairs at Cole’s Camp. That hasn’t changed in four-plus decades or more.

Good change, bad change. Better pay attention.

Linda Farr Macgregor is a freelance writer who lives in Rumford.