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One of the advantages of downsizing, if you like this business like I do, is that when someone calls and no one's around, you end up doing things yourself.

New Town Councilman Jim Merritt called Thursday. He wanted to know if we could cover alumni of the Orange County Training School boxing donated turkeys for the community Saturday morning. Merritt never said he was the new councilman, which I found modest and interesting.

So Saturday morning I met him and a handful of others from the days of segregated schools in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. I was surprised to learn black and white students attended separate schools here as late as 1966. ("Where are you from?" one of them asked and laughed.)

It was a chance moment. A phone call that led to a meeting some delightful people with poignant stories about a time when people looked out for one another. When, as Esphur Foster said, adults knew children from the back, "from the way they walked," -- the better to know who was out at night when they should have been home in bed or doing their homework.

We'll have a story in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News. But I told the group we'd also like to see what we can do about getting some of their stories -- about the old days and new -- in the paper on a regular basis. I hope to see them again soon.