Narrator: There was a time when the world was enormous...Spanning the vast, almost infinite boundaries of your neighborhood. The place where you grew up. Where you didn't think twice about playing on someone else's lawn. And the street was your territory .that occasionally got invaded by a passing car. It was where you didn't get called home until after it was dark. And all the people, and all the houses that surrounded you were as familiar as the things in your own room. And you knew they would never change.
Season 4

Narrator: There was only one thing more to say. The simple thing, the brave thing, the thing that was in both our hearts.
Kevin: Wanna...study for our history test?
Winnie: Sure.
Narrator: Face it. We were a long way from kindergarten. And maybe we were learning that speaking from the heart isn't always easy. That afternoon, Winnie and I chose to leave those words hanging warm and unspoken in the winter air between us. But I think we both knew they were there... And we would get to them someday. The thing is, we just didn't have to hurry anymore.

Narrator: There were no two ways about it. When I was fourteen... I was a pretty cool kid. Not in the ninety-ninth-percentile of coolness, maybe, but definitely top third of my class. I knew the walk. I knew the talk. I had my own kinda... style. But, like a lot of cool kids my age, I did have one tragic flaw. One terrible secret that threatened the very fabric of my fragile image. I, Kevin Arnold, had a mom.

Narrator: There's a dream that's as old as natural grass, and nickel hot dogs... and being young. It's a dream every kid shares. The one big moment. Hero time. Of course, when you're five... that dream doesn't seem out of reach. Everyone plays the game about the same. Bad. Still, for all your short-comings... you've got the one thing that matters most. Potential. Then... as springtime rolls into fall, and Little League gives way to summer jobs... somehow the dream gets left behind.

Narrator: There's one in every high school in America - the trophy case. Filled with winged statues, and silver-plated victory cups... all monuments to the winning spirit. To team play. To greatness on the field. Not just anyone could get inside that case. You had to be a winner. You had to have determination. You had to have guts. And most importantly... You had to make the cut. That fall of my sophomore year, one thing was clear. No matter how hard I tried... the wide world of sports wasn't wide enough to include me. Face it. I was five-foot-four, and a hundred-and-ten pounds. What team could I play on?

Narrator: They say hindsight's twenty-twenty, and I guess it's true. Because as I stood outside Winnie's house that night, I suddenly saw it all so clearly. I'd sold both of us short, by taking something that most people never have and throwing it away for something less. I'd been in such a hurry to impress people that didn't matter, I'd torn apart the only ones who did...us.

Narrator: They say men are children, but sometimes children are men; maybe that's where the confusion lies... All I knew was that night the world suddenly seemed very big and I felt very small, so I did what I could...1972 was a crazy time. Kids played football, drove cars, went to school, celebrated life; while soldiers, heroes, their brothers struggled to find their way home from war; and young boys watched and grew wiser in their dreams.

Narrator: They say you can live a lifetime and never find love. So I guess I was lucky. Because true love crossed my path the first time I met the girl next door - Winnie Cooper. Winnie and I'd been together longer than any couple I knew. Still, history only goes so far. Kinda like Winnie. Unfortunately, the mathematics of the situation were open to interpretation. To me, they led forward, to that great unknown. But to Winnie, they led... back! See, the great thing about us was that we had this past together. The bad thing about us was that we had this past together. Not that I minded being part of Winnie's past. It's just, when it came to who I was... she seemed to regard me as a known quantity.

Narrator: They say you never forget your first job. I know I remember mine. Harris' hardware store. Down the hill from where I lived. The year I started tenth grade. It was the kind of place you don't see much of anymore. Filled to the rafters with brackets, and bolts, and old screens. Ya know, stuff on the cutting-edge of obsolescence. It started as a summer job... but once school began, Mr. Harris cut back my hours so I could keep working. With the allowance Dad was paying me, I had no choice.

Narrator: Things were confusing, alright. Sometimes even crazy. Still, I wasn't crazy. Just... in love. Winnie and I had survived the summer of long-distance romance. In fact, her move across town had brought a new depth to our relationship. We shared everything, now that she was wearing my ring. Hopes, dreams... big plans. Yep, these were golden moments - in a golden summer. When every day was perfect, and you knew it would go on forever.

Narrator: Thirteen is a crazy age. You're too young to vote, and too old not to be in love. You live in a house someone else owns...But your dreams are already somewhere else. You face the future armed with nothing but the money you've earned from mowing lawns, and a nine-dollar ring with a purple stone. And you hope against hope...that'll be enough.

Narrator: Those seventeen years... He knew what I meant. After all... Standing there on the edge of adulthood... we knew that the problems of men were not easily solved. That life was a risk. That growing up... was a gamble. That the time for bluffing, had passed. Still, ya never knew. With a little luck... Things just might turn out OK.

Narrator: Those years were like a long journey for me. Looking back, it was a time when we were still very small. And the world seemed very big. And I think about those days again and again... whenever some blowhard starts talking about the anonymity of the suburbs... or the mindlessness of the TV generation. Because I know I'll never forget those times... those years of wonder.
Season 5

Narrator: Throughout time... there have been some pretty obnoxious couples. Couples who constantly bickered. Couples who had trouble communicating. But never, in the history of men and women... had there been a couple more horrifying, more terrifying, than... Alice Pedermeir... and Chuck Coleman. In the three months they'd been dating... they'd broken up twenty-seven times. A class record. Make that twenty-eight times. And in situations like these, there was one cardinal rule. Never, never, get in the middle of someone else's relationship. It was a tried-and-true theory. Leave well enough alone, and things would work out.

Narrator: Uh-oh! I'd just broken the cardinal rule of child-parent negotiations. Never compare them to their peers.