Ira Glass

And after a series of jobs, he decided to become a certified public accountant.

He was a typical workaholic suburban dad.

You know, off to the office at 7 in the morning, back at 6.30 for dinner.

Exhausted after that, he would sit in his yellow recliner in front of the TV and fall asleep.

He started his own business, struggled to establish it, worked lots of nights and weekends.

During tax season, from January to April 15th, we would barely see him.

In our house when I was growing up was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, a little consumer unit that my mother and my sisters and I would goof around on from time to time, record us singing or telling stories.

And while my mom appears on these tapes a lot, my father does not appear on them once.

He simply was not there to be recorded.

The only time he's mentioned on all of these tapes is this.

I'm going to play this moment to you.

My mother is cooing to my older sister, Randy, who's probably, I don't know, a year old, year and a half old.

Barry's my dad.

Uh-huh.

These days, my dad explains his decision to leave radio and become an accountant this way.

And that was 1959?

Yeah.

The year I was born.

Are those two things related?

It sounds like they are.