Father's Day '98

#106 - 19 June 1998

For this Father's Day, stories in which fathers and their kids sit down and try to have an honest moment together. And stories about fathers who aren't close with their kids.

Take A Negro Home

#105 - 12 June 1998

Two stories of people who try to cross the color line — and why it's still so hard. We hear the story of a failed interracial marriage and the story of a teenager from a poor inner city neighborhood (Cedric Jennings, pictured) who ends up at an Ivy League University — and how he barely survives there.

Music Lessons

#104 - 5 June 1998

What's frustrating about music lessons, what's miraculous about them, and what they actually teach us. This show was recorded in front of a live audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, with help from KQED-FM, during the 1998 Public Radio Conference in San Francisco.

Scenes from A Transplant

#103 - 29 May 1998

An NPR reporter leaves her three-year-old son and heads to Omaha—for cancer treatment—a last chance to save her life. After years of covering stories about medicine, Rebecca Perl enters the hospital as a patient. She moves from the world of healthy people into the world of sick ones. What she sees and what she learns.

Road Trip!

#102 - 22 May 1998

With all the American movies and songs and books about the joy of the open road, it's hard for an American to take just a normal road trip without huge expectations.

Niagara

#101 - 1 May 1998

During this hour, a special edition of our show: Stories about Niagara Falls, half of them from documentary producer Alix Spiegel, who went to the Falls and interviewed people living there; and half from playwright David Kodeski, who grew up in the town of Niagara Falls.

Radio

#100 - 24 April 1998

For the 100th episode of This American Life, a radio show about the pleasures of radio. About what makes radio so great ... and what makes it so terrible.

I Enjoy Being A Girl, Sort Of

#99 - 10 April 1998

Variations on what it means to be a girl and what it means to be a woman.

Throwing the First Punch

#98 - 27 March 1998

Stories about what it means to be a person who throws the first punch ... and how hard it is to give up.

Death to Wacky

#97 - 20 March 1998

An assault on the idea of wackiness. And then, an appreciation of wackiness, and an analysis of wackiness in American culture. Thirteen ways to describe wackiness.