Ira Glass

You're doing ads for the hokiest products in the world, and you sound completely like you believe it.

Yeah.

There's a lot of appliances.

Uh-huh.

And then there's one reader and advisor named Mrs. K. Uh-huh.

I've forgotten about her.

Formerly of Europe.

Oh, my God.

You know, a lot of what it's like to be on the radio is just trying to sound relaxed when, you know, you're not.

You're doing a show.

You're not just talking to people.

And in some of these tapes, I can actually hear my father struggling to sound relaxed.

And these recordings give me this picture of him that I have never had in my life, really.

He seems so young, you know, and innocent.

A guy in his 20s doing this thing that I know so intimately myself.

You know, just sitting in front of a microphone, trying to sound at ease, trying to sound like this relaxed old pro.

Not a care in the world.

This is just how long ago this happened.

They had not yet invented the idea of renaming the colors of appliances things like, you know, avocado, lemon, eggshell.

Not long after he got out of the army, my dad decided that radio was no way to make a living.