From the testimony of his friends, his own words now, and letters he sent to Tipper back then, it seems he struggled with the usual problems of post-adolescence--an overprotective mother and a controlling but caring father.

In a letter sent just as the summer began in 1966, Gore wrote from his Tennessee home, "The cattle party was tonight--the sale is tomorrow. It's 11 o'clock and I have to be up at 5. That's not so bad but I didn't get any sleep last night."

The letter, one of many obtained by the historian Douglas Brinkley for Talk Magazine, also shows a hint of youthful exuberance.

"Mother's having a fit about me riding the motorcycle back to Harvard," Gore noted, referring to the Honda he used to ride to visit Tipper at Boston University. "Dad's mad about my long hair. I didn't even think it was long."

His status as son of a senator did not earn him any special privileges among his friends.

"You'd have to conduct a search to find a less connected bunch of Harvard," Somerby says. "Tommy Lee Jones came from a working-class background.... By Harvard standards, [Gore] was living with the complete proletariat."

Even Gore's room wasn't spectacular. "We just looked out on a big tree," Somerby says.

Life seemed idyllic, perhaps, but, by 1969, no one on campus was isolated from the contentious Vietnam protests.