Narrator: There was a road that ran near the edge of my town. Out where the suburbs were still farms. I used to go there nights, that autumn of nineteen-seventy-two. I was sixteen. I had a girl. I had a car. I had a job. I was full of night... and life. I just wasn't ready to go home. That year, I traveled streets I'd never known before. I pushed against the limits of my suburban life. I had no idea exactly what lay ahead. All I knew was... I was running out of time. And I was gonna bust if something didn't happen... soon. In nineteen-seventy-two, the country was at war. With its armies... with its ideals... with itself. The dreams of the '60's were battling a new decade. And things were happening everywhere. Well, almost everywhere.
Mr. Deeks: Open your books to chapter six, section thirteen. The rise of post-agricultural Europe.
Narrator: Eleventh-grade. The no-man's land of public education.

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: 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: 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: We'd come this far. No sense turning back, now. We fished the rest of that day. We didn't catch much. Dad said he'd like to move up here, and open a bait shop. I told him it was a great idea. I think he believed it. And in the end... I guess we finally figured out why we'd come here in the first place. We'd come... to say goodbye.

Narrator: Working for Mr. Chong certainly wasn't the best job I ever had. The hours were long... the money was poor, and employee-management relations left a lot to be desired. But in its way, each night held a promise - of riches. And adventure.

Radio Announcer: With the heavily Negro population of the District of Columbia and the rocksteady Democrat stronghold of Massachusetts, Senator McGovern has an early start by carrying those states.
Narrator: Maybe I was jaded to think Winnie was idealistic. That newscast spurred me on to go to party headquarters where I could see the thrill of victory.
[Kevin arrives at party headquarters to see a glum scene]
Narrator: Or the agony of defeat.
Scoreboard: McGov = 2 checks. Nixon = 49 checks.
Winnie: How could this be? How could this have happened?
Mike: Winnie, we have to face reality. McGovern never stood a chance. Now is the time to focus our efforts on the 1974 Congressional elections.
Narrator: I guess many hearts were broken across America that night. But only one I really cared about. But somehow, it didn't seem important, anymore - who was right, who was wrong. All that really seemed to matter was... After all, maybe in his own way, Mike was right. In politics, you live to fight another day. Sure, the 'sixties were gone, but sooner or later...there'd be other battles to fight. The thing is, that election forever changed the way my generation looked at politics. We discovered, no matter how painfully, that we could be part of the process. That we could believe. And even now, twenty years later, despite all the evidence to the contrary... I can remember that night. And still believe.