Americans’ Sense of Compassion Rings Hollow : Sharing with have-nots used to be easier, when the country was richer and more productive. Now, sadly, people give lots of excuses.

I like to think of myself as a good citizen. I don’t litter. I dislike graffiti. And sometimes I get a little misty when I sing the national anthem.

When I get to the end--the line about the land of the free and the home of the brave--I’m reminded of my fourth-grade teacher, Edith Perkins.

She told us how lucky we were to be born Americans. We lived in the richest, most productive nation in the world, she said, and we were a compassionate people who shared our wealth with hungry boys and girls overseas. Lately I have been wondering just how compassionate we are.

In school I thanked my lucky stars that my family had a new Buick, I had a Hula-Hoop, and we were free and fed.

I did worry about the drunk we used to see slumped against the high school gym. Once I asked my father to give him some money but he said the guy would just use it to buy more liquor.

Partly I get misty-eyed when I sing the national anthem because there are so many people slumped against buildings now. Some are drunks, some are drug addicts, some are hungry, some are sick. In grocery store parking lots, at freeway off-ramps, at intersections--each time I see someone wheeling a shopping cart full of personal effects, living in a car or talking to herself, I think something has got to be done.

You know the line. You say you want to get involved, but you don’t know what to do exactly. When my daughter, Kate, asked me to give a guy with a sign some money, I said he would probably spend it on drugs.

*

So maybe I picked up the phone out of guilt. Certainly it was to impress my kid.

First I called a homeless shelter that needed someone to sell tickets to a department store benefit. You would get a discount if you bought a $100 booklet, and some of that money went to the shelter. I have a number of skills, but selling unfortunately is not among them. Then I volunteered myself and Kate for a gift-wrapping project. Proceeds went to an AIDS counseling service. We fumbled with 10-pound rolls of wrapping paper while shoppers glared at our ineptitude. Other times I was asked to collect cans and drop them off, to donate clothes, to send money.

Finally I stumbled onto an organization delivering hot meals to homebound AIDS patients. I was thrilled to find a way to help people face to face. They were even more thrilled. I could begin any time.

The meals are prepared in the Project Angel Food kitchen in Hollywood and then distributed to locations across Los Angeles. I pick up my deliveries at a church in North Hollywood and drive to the West San Fernando Valley where I make eight or 10 stops. There are six or seven routes like mine in the Valley. It takes two hours a week, but the personal payoff lasts much longer.

The meal I take to Steve (which is not his real name) is often the only one he eats that day. Steve opens his door a crack and answers that he’s not doing so well but what do you expect? One recent Tuesday he looked especially frail. He was taking a taxi to the doctor’s office that afternoon, and he worried about who would feed his cat if they put him in the hospital.

*

Matt loves to show off his art projects, which include designing bouquets with plastic flowers he gets at Pic ‘N’ Save. They fill every corner of his tiny one-bedroom apartment. At Christmastime, Matt decorated to the hilt. Red plastic poinsettias covered tables and chairs, and silver foil lined his door. On Christmas Day he invited a few HIV-positive acquaintances over for a ham--people he was sure didn’t have any place to go. Matt saved all year for the party because most of them didn’t know if that would be their last Christmas. Walking has become painful for Matt, and it takes forever for him to get to the door. When he closes it, at least he is sheltered from the gang influence outside.

Olivia is a single mom with four kids. Her refrigerator is usually empty, so when I knock, 5-year-old Jessica answers, dancing on her toes. At Christmas, Jessica said she didn’t care if she didn’t have any presents because she still had her mom.

Bob is usually clean-cut and articulate. But a few weeks ago he looked like hell and admitted to me that he had a drug problem. The next week he said he had stopped using and he looked OK, but every time I knock on his door my fingers are crossed.

In the beginning there were six names on Project Angel Food’s list. Last year it had grown to 420, and now 650 meals are going out every day. That is more than a 50% increase in a year, and it would be more if there were more volunteers. Every month more people in Los Angeles and the Valley get sick, and every month more drivers and kitchen helpers are needed.

“We don’t have the volunteers” that are needed, says Katrina Alexy, a staff member with Project Angel Food. “In fact, every single day we wonder if we’re going to get the food out.”

*

I couldn’t wait to sign up my friends, the people who sigh with me when we see some poor lost soul shuffling across a street. But some work, and several say they go away on weekends a lot. One friend says she knows she is selfish and stupid, but she has a thing about getting sick herself. Another volunteers at the Little League park and wonders why people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome can’t get their helpers from the gay community?

I’m sad when I sing the national anthem because it’s a song about Mrs. Perkins’ America and not the place where I live. In her country, we’re a compassionate people--rich, productive, willing to share.

The flag still waves o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, I guess, but to be free in the 1990s one pretty much needs a lot of money. And to be brave these days must often mean to endure unthinkable suffering privately, while the majority of us good citizens just hum the tune and wonder what’s to be done.