Narrator quotes from The Wonder Years

Narrator

Heck - I was no Superman. Not really, anyway. But if Debbie Pfeiffer needed a hero... so be it. She had plenty of time to grow up, and figure it out on her own. After all, a little stardust in the eyes never hurt anybody. Least of all, me.

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Before my parents were Mom and Dad... they were Norma and Jack. Or, so the story goes. Back then, they didn't have much. So they got by on what they had - each other. Somewhere along the way, though... hearts and flowers gave way to other things. Guess it kinda took 'em by surprise. So, like any couple of their generation... they did what they had to do - they became... parents. Providers.

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When you're fourteen, you know a lot of things. How to throw a spiral... how to fix a bike. But standing there... I knew I couldn't fix what was wrong.

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There are a lot of great records in sports. Rocky Marciano fought to victory in forty-nine straight heavyweight prize-fights. The University of Oklahoma won forty-seven college football games in a row. But in the annals of sports... there was one record that surpassed them all. One destined to go unbroken for time immemorial. I had beaten Paul Pfeiffer at basketball - as near as I can remember - seven hundred eighty eight times in a row. Give or take a hundred. It was a streak that went all the way back to kindergarten - maybe even before. Not that I was some kind of all-American. It's just... I was me. Whereas Paul... Paul was - Paul.

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That night, Paul Pfeiffer and I played the most important game of our lives. We both played hard. And we both played to win. And no game ever mattered more. To both of us. Maybe change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go. But that night... after seven-hundred ninety consecutive loses... Paul finally beat me. Paul made the basketball team that year. And he had some loyal fans. But his biggest fan... was also his best friend. I guess sometimes you have to grow apart... to keep growing together.

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When you're a kid, it's simple. Christmas is magic. It's a time of miracles, when reindeer can fly, and Frosty never melts. Then you get older. Somehow, things change. The magic begins to fade. Until something happens that reminds you, at Christmas time... miracles still can be found. Sometimes in the most unexpected places.

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I stood there, helpless, outnumbered. And that's when it happened. Doug Porter looked first, directly into the eyes of the man who had taught him gym for three long years. Then Tommy Kisling looked, too, and Randy Mitchell. Those three skeptics gazed straight at that white beard, dead into the eyes of Coach Cutlip not thirty feet away. But all that they saw... was Santa Claus. It was a miracle. He stood there like some patron saint of all the lonely people holidays sometimes forget. And for that brief moment of Christmas magic, Ed Cutlip got his chance to be what he always wanted. And I never gave him away.

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Everybody know politics is a dirty business. Yet our greatest national heroes have always been politicians. Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe it takes a certain kind of person to get down in the mud... and come out with the bricks of statecraft. After all, in America, they say any kid can grow up to be president. What they don't say... is how.

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Which only proved what I'd known all along. Simply stated... politics stinks. I never regretted running for president of the student council... or the three weeks of detention that followed. In fact... in many ways, I was a better man for it. Even though I lost to a duck. In any event... it was time to leave politics to the politicians. Let the ship of state sail on. At least they wouldn't have Kevin Arnold to kick around anymore.

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Young love is really pretty simple. It's about sharing little inside jokes when the teacher isn't looking. It's about passing notes in the hallway between classes. It's about all the really stupid things you share. It's about going through it, together. Winnie Cooper and I had been through it all. The good times, bad times, the ups and downs. And we were still together. We'd known each other since we were kids. And to me she was still the girl next door - even though she didn't live next door anymore.

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Back there on our seat... the ride home in the dark seat... there it was- the ring I gave to Winnie; the one she was giving back to me. I looked for her on the other bus but I couldn't find her, she was already lost in the crowd. I knew then that the girl next door was gone. And my life would never be the same again.

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Love makes you do funny things. It makes you proud. It makes you sorry. That night we talked. About life. About our times together. Maybe we weren't the same two kids we had once been. But some things never change. Some things last. And even though I didn't know what was going to happen to us, or where we were going. I just knew I couldn't let her out of my life.

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I grew up in a neighborhood that was a lot like other neighborhoods. Where the boxes we lived in were distinguished only by the names on the mailboxes, and the cars in the driveways. It was a place where hard-working Americans circled their wagons to protect themselves from the outside world. Our lives were made up of little moments, all delicately intertwined.

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I had never seen my grandfather turn into my dad, for lack of better words to describe how he lost his temper with me and Wayne. I'd never see that happen again, either...whether the other fellow deserved it or not. [first-draft line; shortened in rewrites]

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[first-draft epilogue, deleted in rewrites; the Arnolds are driving home from the funeral] ...Six years later, Albert Arnold himself passed away. His pallbearers at the funeral included Wayne and myself. I think we both owed our grandfather at least that much.