Father's Day '01

Leah remembers when her parents got divorced and her dad, a farmer in North Dakota, moved to an apartment in town. It was cramped and ugly, and it had a Murphy bed that made a horrible creak when you brought it down from the wall. It was the first time she'd seen him look vulnerable, and not at all the heroic can-do guy he once was to her. At some point, of course, every dad comes down off the pedestal; it's just that some do it more gracefully than others. This, she says, was too early, too sudden. (6 minutes)

Ian Brown explains the lengths a normal dad will go to give his daughter a memorable birthday party, including a birthday stunt so crass that he and his wife shocked all their friends. Ian Brown is the author of Man, Medium Rare and Freewheeling, and the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's program Talking Books. (13 minutes)