The Making Of John Kerry

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Kerry's friends from St. Paul's note many ways in which he was a conspicuous outsider. He was disgusted by the classmate who, tired of one not very wealthy kid's enormous pride in his record collection, went into town and bought out the local record store. "A lot of guys thought it was funny," Barbiero says, "but John was really upset that somebody would do that." While his pedigree was plenty aristocratic, Kerry didn't have the money to go with it. He didn't jet to Gstaad for Christmas or fly the private jet to Paris for a long weekend. In fact, he worked summers loading trucks as a Teamster at First National Stores, then one of the Northeast's leading grocery chains. "You have to understand that atmosphere," Barbiero says. "These were kids who were raised to believe that they came from the ruling class. But John was Catholic. He was also not from wealth. He never had money in his pocket. I joke that he still owes me money. He never had cash, and that was a very unusual thing for a student at S.P.S. He also had a European kind of flair. He dressed a little differently, liked to wear French cuffs. He was a very hard worker at everything. He played sports hard. He was very competitive, and it wasn't a cool thing to be competitive at S.P.S. You didn't have to be competitive — you had a birthright."

Kerry compensated by almost forcing his way into prominence at the school. Having shot up in size after arriving at St. Paul's — growing "something like six inches in six months," brother Cam remembers — Kerry used his height to his advantage in sports, especially hockey. He acted in plays, played bass in a band and joined as many other clubs and organizations as he could. By his senior year, Kerry was much more comfortable than in his first couple of years. "Like at any school, you find your friends, and I did," he says. "And it was a different kind of group. It was more of a group who was interested in ideas. We talked more seriously about what was going on."

"We used to spend long times after the younger boys had gone to bed talking about the state of the world," recalls his English teacher Herb Church. "I was always impressed with his maturity." But people who remember what he was like back then suggest that there was already a difference between the public Kerry, who was intent on making an impression, winning the debate, and the private one, who was much more raw and passionate and genuine. "I tease him that he always had a senatorial tone," Barbiero says. "He's not that way, really. He's funny and a great guy to be with. He just comes across that way sometimes."