It was 73 degrees at noon on Sunday, May 25, 1986. The day was sunny and clear, perfect weather for an unprecedented national event. At precisely 3 p.m. EST, noon PST, an unbroken (well, almost) chain of Americans clasped hands beginning in New York, through Washington D.C., across the country and ending at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Were you one of the 5 million people to participate in Hands Across America? It was the Eighties. The hair was big. The shorts were short.