Norman Lear started to cry. "I looked over at an associate, and she was crying, too," he said. What had caused the flood of emotion was a piece of paper.
During a lunch break he had gone to Sotheby's, the New York auction house, to see a 2-century-old document that states in part, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Lear is the producer who brought Archie Bunker into our living rooms. His television series "All in the Family" has become an institution since its 1971 debut. But he didn't meet with Deseret News editors to talk about Archie, Edith, Meathead, Gloria or any of his TV and movie projects.
Lear is on a mission that has nothing to do with sitcoms and everything to do with patriotism. He is a revivalist. The Declaration of Independence is his main tool to wake up the country.
And his passion for America is going to bless the lives of Utahns.
After recounting the Sotheby's incident, Lear told how he and Internet entrepreneur David Hayden bought that rare 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence in an online auction last year for $8.14 million; today he owns it outright.
But Lear doesn't consider the precious document to be his and his alone. It isn't something to hang on a wall in his house. The treasure must be shared.
"It belongs to the people," he said. So much so that he has arranged to take this original copy ? one of only 25 known of the first printing ? on a 3 1/2-year cross-country tour.
Currently it's at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Beginning Feb. 7 ? one day before the 2002 Olympic Winter Games begin ? and until the Paralympics conclude March 16, it will reside in Utah's State Capitol rotunda. Then it's off to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta.
Lear hopes the project? especially in the wake of Sept. 11 ? will inspire Americans, particularly young people, to become involved and to vote. The plan is to invite all Utah fourth- and fifth-graders ? and anyone else drawn by its magic and meaning ? to the Capitol.
He wants to replace complacency with enthusiasm and even a sense of awe about America's values. He wants this generation to feel how his grandfather did about democracy. He remembers as a child how he would see a tear rolling down his grandfather's cheek during parades.
Interviews and speeches on the Web reveal Lear's sincere concern that the nation's character is being swamped in a materialistic era.
"Our popular culture," he said in 1989, "celebrates the material and largely ignores the spiritual ? and it is not unrelated that many, many decent people feel the moral and cultural ground crumbling beneath their feet.
"I sense in most Americans a deepening thirst for spiritual authenticity, a yearning for connection and a sense of shared moral values. . . . It's imperative we recover a sense of the sacred in our daily lives."
Lear intends to do that in part, during the 2002 Cultural Olympiad and beyond, by sharing that document of hope known as the Declaration of Independence.
E-mail: jrob@desnews.com