Hands Across the Decades

I did not really want to be in Hands Across America. Kenny Rogers is not my first choice as Martin Luther King’s successor, and this latest version of quick-fix politics made me a bit queasy. The topper was the thought of Ron and Nancy joining the line. Even Lyndon Johnson had the good taste not to go out on Pennsylvania Avenue and join the March for Peace.

But my wife had bought tickets, and four spaces were waiting for us in Hollywood, on Vermont near Sunset. She persuaded me that it would be good for our kids to get a taste of participation in the important issues and a whiff of what their parents did back in the ‘60s.

It was already that kind of weekend. We had taken the kids to the Pete Seeger concert at the Greek Theater on Friday for the same reason. (Funny, I don’t remember involvement being so expensive in the ‘60s. I dug through my box of mementos, and among all my old grape-boycott leaflets, wire-rimmed glasses and “We Shall Overcome” bumper stickers there wasn’t a single Ticketron receipt for a spot close to the action at an anti-war demonstration.)

Noon Sunday found us standing around on the sidewalk on Vermont waiting for something to happen. It reminded me of standing on Main Street at Disneyland waiting for the parade to begin.

I didn’t know what to expect, but it sure wasn’t what happened: When the countdown hit, the whole line moved into the median; Hands Across America was going to occur in the middle of the street.

I am sure that I wasn’t the only one, in 1969 or last Sunday, who felt a charge of freedom from being in the street, blocking traffic, with a group of momentarily like-minded people. I am not suggesting, like a pedestrian variation on the theories of Bruno Bettelheim, that all of the ‘60s can be explained as an oppositional reaction to traffic signals. It is just that there is an exhilaration to feeling that everyone is here for a reason good enough to disrupt the rules and make this issue the most important thing in their lives for a few moments. It is the exhilaration of feeling that what you think and do just might matter.

The event even had some of the trappings of the old days. People in line shouted to passers-by the same things that they did 20 years ago: “Join the line! Join us, join us!”

Then, just as in the old days, as soon as it was over my wife and I turned on the TV set to assess the media reaction.

Life has become a bit more complicated, though. While we were standing in the street, a haggard man came along the sidewalk with his belongings in a bag. He was, fairly obviously, one of the homeless people that this event was intended to help; he did not look a bit like Nick Nolte. He asked what was going on. Someone yelled, “To help the poor.” Another was more direct: “It’s for you.” A third invited him into the line.

He walked into the street to hold hands, leaving his bag on the sidewalk. (If only it could all be left behind so easily.) He stayed only a short time before going back to the sidewalk to retrieve his bag and continue his very private parade. Maybe he knew that Ronald Reagan was not holding hands with a homeless man in Washington.

I wondered who had been more embarrassed, him or the people next to him. I doubt that many people in line were sorry to see him go. He did not seem to fit; this event was about charity, not brotherhood.

Whatever it was about, my kids lost interest fast. After a few minutes my son asked, “How long are we going to have to stand here?” My wife, bless her good intentions, told him that the poor people we are trying to help have to stand in line every day for food. My son asked if we would have to do that, too. It seemed a goofy response, and I was dispirited about ever getting “the message” across.

After a while I began to think that he just may be getting the idea. For now, all I really want to give my kids is a glimmer of understanding of how magnificently lucky they are, so that they do not grow up believing that they are entitled to their privileges. (My friend Howard says that this is just my self-importance talking. The last time I gave my son one of my little “How Lucky You Are” speeches, Howard told him to say: “Lawyers are a dime a dozen; I wish my father played for the Clash or the Dodgers.”)

I am glad that I was in Hands Across America. It’s not going to change my life; I didn’t go home and beat my VCR into plowshares. But, just like all those crazy demonstrations in the old days, it made me feel good about a group of people I will never see again, and it made me feel good about America.