Most-quoted character in The Wonder Years: in 234 of its 239 quotes Most scenes with: Kevin (15), Jack Arnold (10), Norma Arnold (6)
Lines by Narrator 201
Narrator
Ninteen-seventy-one was a big year. Hot-pants were invented. Dennie McLaine lost twenty two games for the Washington Senators. And I graduated from junior high school. But... we'll get to that. In the three years since I'd entered seventh-grade... a lot of things had changed. Still, in the suburbs where I lived, the currency of life remained about the same. The whir of lawn-mowers. The cries of hide-and-seek. The dreams of parents. The struggles of children.
I couldn't really say what I did that summer. It passed in kind of a blur. What I remember... are green lawns and sprinklers... and the smell of backyard grills. And the nearness of friends.
The fact was... the teachers I had at RFK ranged from the ridiculous... to the sublime. From the exasperating... to the intimidating. From the ineffectual... to the indecipherable. It's just that, as with most adolescents... my real education began at home. From my family. My mother instilled in me a deep appreciation for the importance of family. And knowing your roots. Then, of course... there was my father. The man who'd taught me the intricacies of progressive parenting. My sister taught me the concept of independence. And, by accident of birth... ladies and gentlemen, my brother, Wayne. A pillar of support in times of crisis. All-in-all, I guess you could say my family was kind of a proving ground for the lessons of life.
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.
Lake Wennahatchee... For one week that summer of nineteen-seventy-one, my family and Paul Pfeiffer's rented side-by-side cabins along its placid shores. It was a place to get away from the aggravations of modern suburban life... escape from the petty everyday competition. The kind of paradise that made you wish you could stay forever.
I wanted to stay there, in that night... more than anything I wanted before. But I knew I couldn't. I was fifteen. I slept under a roof my father owned, in a bed my father bought. Nothing was mine, except my heart, and my fears. And my growing knowledge that not every road was going to lead home anymore.
That first week of high school, as I watched our class band together. I realized something about these strangers I'd just met. Strangers I hardly knew. Strangers who were just like me. We were all sharing the same feelings. The same fears, the same loneliness. We were just starting out, and there was only one direction to go. So we went - together.
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.
I felt him watching me. And somehow, I knew what he was thinking. How much I'd learned, how much he taught me. But I was fifteen. I lived in a world that was new and alive, and exciting. And everything here was old. Maybe it was stupid. That's also part of being fifteen. I traded in my tie for a stupid hat and a plastic name tag at the mall. When I left a month later - no one cared. But every time I pick up a flat-head screw, I think of old man Harris, and how those cowbells clanged as I walked out that door. And even though I can't say exactly what I gained... I know I can't measure... what I lost.
Maybe it was a dream. Or maybe I was crazy. Maybe Denise "The Grease" only knew one way to kiss. Or maybe, the most voluptuous girl at McKinley high, had just fallen for Kevin Arnold.
Adolescence is kind of a screwy time. A time of hope and confusion. It's a race to find out who you really are. But if there's one thing teenager knows, it's this. Stated simply... if you want to be a star... you gotta have a car. Cars - the ultimate dream of every red-blooded American kid. Cars meant freedom, status, maturity. If you were old enough to drive, the world was your oyster. But, if you weren't... your world was more of a sardine - to really stretch an analogy. Without wheels, life was one indignity after another. A series of humiliations. And faced with these constant embarrassments... you look for any small way to elevate your status. The trick was to keep your friends jealous. Fact was, we all knew the bottom-line. To be truly free and functioning high-school men, what we needed... was a car.
We didn't really accomplish anything that night. Nothing of any real importance, anyway. But through the high school years that lay ahead... there would be a thousand other nights, just like that one. Stupid, ridiculous... and glorious.
As I sat there, listening to my brother's pain... and the lies he told to cover it... I didn't know what to do. I knew I wanted to be with Sandy. Holding her in my arms - dancing with her. But in the end... I stayed with my brother... because, after all... he was... my brother.
The nineteen-seventies were filled with improbable events. Strange occurrences. Unexpected happenings. But nothing was quite as improbable... as my brother and his new girlfriend. It defied explanation. Sandy Tyler was a seemingly-intelligent eleventh-grader. She was smart. She was pretty. Seemed as good an explanation as any. It was amazing. By some fantastic stroke of cosmic luck, my brother had found paradise. A girl with charm. A girl with style. A girl... who used her silverware.
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?
The Wonder Years · 239 quotes
Narrator
