The story of a man who might have a better grip on what's going on in the economy of middle-class America than all the experts you ever read in the paper or see on TV. Dave Ramsey hosts a call-in radio show about personal finance, but he ends up answering questions about more than money.

Ira tells the story about how Scott first got into radio. He was listening to a story on the radio one day, thought "I can do that," and promptly hitchhiked across the country to Washington, to the headquarters of NPR.

Ira talks about those ephemeral, thrilling radio moments that you happen to catch in passing on stations far away that you never find again. Flipping through the channels.

Sarah Vowell with Jim Nayder, host of Magnificent Obsession and The Annoying Music Show, who personifies our culture's split between seriousness and wackiness as well as anyone.

We told Chicago playwright Jeff Dorchen about what the three boys in Act One said, and he created a brief original radio play picking up where they left off.

Canadians not getting any respect in two locales: A town called Little Canada, Minnesota; and in Canada, where a guy doing a Canadian-heritage art project gets ribbed by his neighbors, who joke that there is no Canadian culture to celebrate. Then, Sarah Vowell speaks with Ian Brown, formerly the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's long-running program Sunday Morning. They arm wrestle over what it means to be a Canadian, what it means to be an American, and whether the two are the same.

A story by Larry Doyle.

Wisconsin Public Radio wanted to do something simple: start running Car Talk, the most popular single hour on public radio. But to do this, they had to move their local car show, About Cars, from the morning to the afternoon.

David Sedaris play, with Toby Wherry and Penelope Boyer.

An original radio drama called "Kathleen on the Carpet," in which animals talk and hold their own "animal court." It's a comedy by David Sedaris, starring our own radio theater company, the Pinetree Gang.

Scott Carrier took a job in commercial radio working for a network correspondent he refers to as "The Friendly Man." Every story was supposed to be upbeat, a tale of people coming together in the heartwarming spirit of community. And every story they sent him on turned out to be a sham.

Chickenman was a short daily radio show airing from 1966 to 1969, and it was incredibly popular. It started locally on WCFL in Chicago, then proceeded to spread to over 1,500 radio stations.

Ira Glass worked for NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered for seventeen years, and shares a few thoughts on the devices he and his colleagues used to simulate the real world on those shows.

Host Ira Glass talks changing the name of the show from Your Radio Playhouse and stumbles on a more fundamental truth about naming things: The people with an investment in the name can be incredibly divisive. He consults television talk show host Joe Franklin for advice.

Ira plays tapes of his own father, Barry, who was a radio deejay in the mid-1950s. Barry gave up spinning records when he decided that he couldn't make a decent living at it, and for over a decade he was against his son going into radio, not wanting him to waste time the way he did.

Starting on radio station WCFL in Chicago, "Chickenman" was a much-loved radio feature in the 1960s. Ira presents the first new "Chickenman" episode since 1969.