Reunited (And It Feels So Good)
PROLOGUE: Host Ira Glass talks about some truths contained in the 1970s hit "Reunited" by Peaches and Herb.
ACT 1: The story of an Iranian couple who were unhappily married for 27 years. He had a temper. She never really loved him. So they split up, got divorced. And then, two years after that, to everybody's surprise—especially their grown-up children—they fell in love and married each other again. And this time, everything was different. One of their daughters, Nazanin Rafsanjani, tells the story.
ACT 2: Ralph and Sandra Fisher, who run a show-animal business in Texas, had a beloved Brahman bull named Chance. Chance was the gentlest bull they'd ever seen—more like a pet dog than a bull. They loved him, kids loved him. He had a long career in movies, on TV, performing at parties. When he finally died, Ralph and Sandra were devastated. Around that same time, scientists at Texas A & M University were looking for animal subjects for a cloning project. They already had some tissue from Chance because they'd treated him for an illness. So Ralph and Sandra offered up Chance's DNA for the experiment. Second Chance was born. And he was, eerily, just like Chance. Except he wasn't. Which they found out the hard way.
ACT 3: This American Life contributing editor Sarah Vowell tells the story of General Lafayette's triumphant reunion with America after becoming really, really unpopular in his native France. Sarah is the author of Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, and, most recently, Assassination Vacation.
ThisAmericanLife.org