My friend Ed, a fellow member of the Pamlico River Chapter of ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out), passed along to me the January-February issue of “Carolina Alumni Review.”

Ed is a proud graduate of UNC (affixing CH seems superfluous to me. We all know which school UNC or Carolina is.)

In the magazine is a really wonderful feature titled “The Year the Game Changed Us,” which takes one back to that season non pareil, 1956-57, when the Tar Heels basketball team was 32-0, and won the national championship by defeating two opponents, in three overtimes each, on consecutive nights. (Notice I didn’t use “back to back,” nor will I ever.)

In the championship game the Tar Heels had to attempt to thwart the almost indomitable Wilt Chamberlain. They managed to pull it out, and the greatest season ever now belongs to the ages. As a high school senior, I was able to fully enjoy and appreciate what that team did and also saw them play three games in the Dixie Classic. Memories.

There is another interesting feature in the same edition of the magazine. It’s about William Leuchtenburg, who “had few peers in the study of the American presidency by the time he arrived at Carolina, where at 94 his work continues at a furious pace.”

This much acclaimed and highly respected historian has numerous books — over a dozen — to his credit, and even collaborated with Ken Burns on a PBS feature about baseball, and has worked together with Burns on several films.

Now. Would you be interested in just a bit about Leuchtenburg’s “take” on just a few presidents, as written in the magazine by Jack Betts, UNC ’68.

Ronald Reagan: “Leuchtenburg wrote that Ronald Reagan, a masterful communicator who struck a warm chord with many Americans, often had higher regard for a good story than for facts. (Betts)

“Remarkably, he found it hard to fathom why truth should be privileged over make-believe. (Reagan) spun one narrative after another that was palpably untrue. In 1985, he recalled his horror at his first encounter with Nazi death camps as a Signal Corps photographer in Europe during World War II, though he had never left the United States at any time during the war. More than once he told the story of a heroic wartime pilot who, instead of bailing out and leaving a wounded crewman to his fate, said, ‘Never mind, son, we’ll ride it down together.’ Even when it was pointed out to him that there was no way to know what one man said to another as they plunged to their deaths, he would not be dissuaded. Reagan’s take, it turned out, derived from the movie ‘A Wing and a Prayer,’ starring Dana Andrews.” (Leuchtenburg)

Space constraints preclude me from passing along some of his observations about Bill and Hillary Clinton, and his informed view of results of the 2000 election “decided” by the Supreme Court. He doesn’t spare the former, and regarded the latter as “ … blatantly biased and untethered in doctrine.”

As for our current president, he called Trump unique: “We have never had before a candidate of a major party so abusive toward women, toward minorities, to so many millions of our American citizens.” He said, “Trump is not a patriot, lacks a sense of the American past, and he doesn’t understand the achievements of this country.”

William Leuchtenburg is not giving up on America, but has real concerns about political comity and getting politicians to work together.

He is not alone. And it is difficult to disagree with such a learned and accomplished man who, at age 94, is still working at that which he has been about his entire adult life.

UNC is fortunate to have this noted scholar-historian living and working there.

So are we.

And the ’56-’57 Tar Heels were uniquely wonderful!

How’s that for changing the subject?