Over the course of his life, Keith Aldrich was a child of the Depression; an aspiring Hollywood actor; a self-styled Beat writer, a member of the New York literati, and then a hippie. Then in the 80's, he became a born-again Christian.

We ask 18-year-old Chana Wiliford and her father in Texas if they'd be willing to have a conversation on tape in which each of them gets to ask the other the questions they've never asked before. In the conversation, Chana is half his child, half his peer.

A case study of how children are asked to live the unlived lives of their parents. Author David Sedaris had a father who loved jazz but played no instrument himself.

David Sedaris with a parable of the pressures on modern women, and how one woman — his sister — responded. David's father thought it was very important that his daughters be thin.

Margy's a reporter. When she told her dad that she wanted to write a story about him, he said sure.

We think of our phone calls and phone messages as so transient. We have another example of phones recording personal history: this story from Barrett Golding in Bozeman, Montana, comprised of telephone messages about his father.

Michael Lewis on duck hunting.

Sarah Vowell goes home to Montana to try and understand her gunsmith dad a little better.

Susan Berman, author of the memoir Easy Street, the True Story of a Gangster's Daugher, reads from her book about her father Davie Berman, a Jewish gangster and one of the men — with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel — who created modern Las Vegas. (7 minutes)Act Two continues after the break.

Ellery Eskelin never met his father but always heard he was a musical genius. Years after his father's death, Ellery started finding recordings of his musical output: he was the king of "song-poems." These are the songs that result when people answer those ads in the backs of magazines that say, "Send us your lyrics, and we'll write and record your song." Ellery's father's musical output was prodigious — and very odd.

Photographer Joel Meyerowitz decided to go on a last big trip with his father, Hy, who has Alzheimer's. Joel also brought his own son.

Writer David Sedaris on parents' dreams and children's nightmares.

Writer Dirk Jamison, who gave up a 9-to-5 job and succeeded in getting something for nothing: he decided he'd feed the family by diving into dumpsters for free food. His father's very zen attitude about this, and how it affected the family.

Ira reads from In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. (7 minutes)

This American Life producer Nancy Updike on a family where the father was one kind of sissy and the son was another kind, and how the family was destroyed despite the fact that no one wanted it to be.

Scott Carrier's wife and mother-in-law insist that Scott's three-and-a-half year old daughter enroll in swimming classes.

LA writer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh discovers that a local rock band has recorded a song about her own father, wildly misinterpreting who he is. They think he's a free spirit; she believes he's a worried, miserly grump.