Hands Across America

How many people would have to hold hands in order to create an unbroken chain from one side of the United States to the other?

I woke up a little earlier than I anticipated this morning, so I started doing some mental math to see if I could put myself back to sleep. This sort of thought experiment is pretty common for me whenever I’m trying to sleep, but it was to no avail today.

However, I couldn’t wait to tell you about this. The question I was considering wasn’t purely hypothetical: there was a real event called Hands Across America where this massive logistical feat was actually tried.

Hands Across America was part of a wave of charity events I lived through during the mid-1980s. If you’ve never heard We Are the World before, you might want to keep it that way. I don’t know of any better cautionary tales about having too much talent in one place than this song and video, but if you’re eager for nostalgia, here you go: