Wil Smith was 27 when he enrolled as a freshman at Bowdoin College in Maine.

But his age wasn’t the only thing that set him apart from his classmates. When Wil set off for school he had his infant daughter, Olivia, in tow.

Now a teenager, Olivia sat down with her dad to look back on their college days.

Wil and Olivia recorded this conversation shortly after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. 

Charles Jones was already a father to three daughters when he found out his fourth child was going to be a boy. He was so excited by the news that even before Malik was born, Charles began plotting ways he would get the new baby into playing and loving sports--the same way his own father had done with him--even joking to others that he had already bought him New York Knicks season tickets.

When Malik was two and a half years old, he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Like many parents of children on the autistic spectrum, Charles and his wife struggled to adjust to their son’s unexpected needs, but over time, they worked together to better understand autism and Malik. Early on, Charles feared his son would be non-verbal, unable to even speak his own name or say, “I love you,” but eventually Malik, now 12, began talking, and according to his father, once he did, “He wouldn’t shut up.”

Charles decided to start a support group for fathers like himself to provide a space for them to feel safe sharing their feelings. Five years ago, at a New York Mets game on Autism Awareness Day, Charles met Anthony Merkerson. Anthony has two children--Elijah, 10, and Amaya, 7--who are both on the autistic spectrum. After meeting Charles, Anthony joined the support group and they have since become close friends.

Charles, a filmmaker, came to StoryCorps with Anthony, a New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority police officer, to talk about what they have learned from one another, and the concerns they have for their sons as young black men growing up in a society where they are at constant risk of being targeted and misunderstood because they are autistic.

Originally aired July 15, 2016 on NPR’s Morning Edition.

For StoryCorps' 10th anniversary, we’re revisiting some favorite stories.

Priya Morganstern and her sister, Bhavani Jaroff, first came to StoryCorps in 2006 to interview their father, Ken Morganstern, who had Alzheimer’s disease.

Ken died in 2007. Priya and Bhavani recently came back to StoryCorps to remember him.

Ed Cage and Nicole Paris are a father-daughter beatboxing duo. At StoryCorps, they talk about how it all began.

Patrick Haggerty grew up the son of a dairy farmer in rural Washington during the 1950s.

As a teenager, Patrick began to understand he was gay–something he thought he was hiding well.

But as he told his daughter Robin, one day, when he went to perform at a school assembly, his father Charles Edward Haggerty, decided to have a serious talk with him.