It doesn't take much for one's memory to return to one's roots, where family and friends were the world.

During the 1980s, when I moved to Boston from Attleboro, I had worked as a scheduler for a lectureship office. The lectures were given domestically and internationally, on subjects of religion and science. I loved this job because it brought me into contact with a wide variety of speakers who were never shy about sharing their traveling and speaking experiences.

One favorite story was related by a lecturer who I considered one of the most aristocratic. He told of arriving at a town in the eastern states.

The sponsor thought that he could attract more audience if the talk was given at a popular drive-in theater. Acting on a conformity not particularly natural to him, the lecturer complied.

He said he stood upon the roof of the drive-in's concession stand, with microphone in hand. He looked out into a sea of faceless cars and began the lecture. Half apologetically, he then explained that he knew everything went well, because after the lecture, "everybody honked their horns." I remember the lecturer's story bringing my thoughts back to my hometown, and the only drive-in theater I ever knew - the Boro. Who can forget the Boro? How can I forget one of my favorite meeting places?

A fun memory

My brother-in-law, a war veteran, worked weekends at the Boro for years before it closed. I can tell of countless nights when my tickets were free, along with popcorn, clam cakes and french fries. It was fun to occasionally smuggle in a friend. The risky effort always resulted in a little more popularity and clout among my peers at the junior high.

During earlier years, after being released from the hospital at age 7, I was propped up in the back seat of my brother-in-law's car for a comfortable convalescence, and a movie, which to this day I can't remember. I do remember the soda and popcorn, and my brother-in-law's gentle attention in serving them. Kind and caring gestures are not forgotten. They ought to be what family and home are really all about.

I loved living in the city, but, as I recall, there could be a detachment to it - a coolness that often required some rekindling of the warmth and closeness I felt growing up in this small town, which was then considered a "village," if you can believe it.

A weekend recollection

During a moment of rekindling - a weekend visit - in the mid 1990s, I was driven down Route 1 by my sister to a restaurant called the Ninety-Nine. With a feeling of eeriness overcoming me, I looked across Route 1 and asked my sister if the old Boro once stood there. "Yes," she said, "somewhere over there." Her point was vague and quick. I could tell she had become used to all this newness.

Currently, in that pointed place lies many updated stores and even a nearby shopping mall. A few minutes south on the same route lies another mall, and a few minutes down Route 1A, another.

Are all of these changes a good thing to a town that, I imagine, is probably still in cultural shock from commercial overkill? Or maybe it's not the town, perhaps it's just me. And talk about traffic. The traffic around Emerald Square is worse than anything I'd ever seen in Boston's Downtown Crossing.

As a recently returned resident, I wish I had a microphone right now. I want my village back, or at least some recognition of what I once considered a nice and quiet home space. Happy memories might be enough of a stabilizer, however, since nothing can change what the heart knows. And where commercial growth and progress are concerned, perhaps the Bostonian in me just wanted to get away from all of that.

In any case, I'll take what my hometown has become, minus the concession stand. It can be an adventure. Walking through three malls within a three-mile radius is always an adventure.

JUDY QUAGLIA BELANGER now resides in East Providence.