We give Danny Drennan, the writer behind the website Inquisitor Mediarama, a little assignment.

Radio producer Scott Carrier quit his job at a low moment in his life. His wife left him and took the kids.

Who are the people we remember as significant figures from our childhood? What is their hold on our imaginations as we age? Ira visits McCosh Elementary on Chicago's South Side, where a man everyone calls "Mr. Lewis" is the surrogate dad for hundreds of kids — a nearly mythic figure.

Chicago playwright Beau O'Reilly talks about how he reconciled with his estranged father years ago by becoming an alcoholic just like him.

This American Life associate producer Peter Clowney visits a modern-day touring company of Hair. They don't just believe they're doing a job as professional actors. They're living as a modern-day tribe of hippies — with all the tensions of any communal living.

Author and kindergarten teacher (and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient) Vivian Paley tells the story of an experiment she conducted in her classroom to make children less cruel to each other. She instituted a rule: "You can't say 'You can't play.'" In other words, if two children are playing, and a third child comes over and wants to join them, they can't tell him or her to get lost.

David Sedaris reads from his story "Naked." (21 minutes)

Sandra's father decides, at age 70, to take a Chinese wife.

Host Ira Glass follows the last month of rehearsals of Oak Park and River Forest High School's production of Neil Simon's Lost In Yonkers.

A girl who adored her father tries to figure out what to think after he takes some of her college money and lies to her about it. Also, a woman whose fiancé runs up $10,000 in credit card charges on her Visa card and vanishes.

Chicago writer Beau O'Reilly writes about a group of close friends who formed an activist group in the seventies. They split apart because of one woman.

The latest installment of Michael Lewis's campaign diaries.

More campaign diaries from The New Republic's Michael Lewis.

Scott Carrier's Haiku stories. Scott is the author of Running After Antelope.

Sherman Alexie's story "Because My Father was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock." (15 minutes)

Sarah Thyre reads author David Sedaris' "The Last Time You'll Ever Hear from Me," a story of the ultimate Machiavellian scheming.

A story of a woman who made a kitchen out of beads.

Julie Showalter, on a costume she wore as a kid.

We hear campaign diaries from author Michael Lewis, who is on the campaign trail for the New Republic magazine.

Two-and-a-half years after Jack Hitt wrote the story that makes up Act One of our show, he returned to the tale of Dawn Langley Simmons.

Julia talks about her brother Michael's cancer. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stage four.

Even the most innocent office job can take over your life. A story by fiction writer Daniel Orozco about one such job.

Chicago performance artist John Conners reads from a 1942 book called How To Improve Your Personality, from a chapter instructing men on how to avoid being sissies.

Reporter Shirley Jahad investigates the politics of the Chicago hot dog on Navy Pier.