One cold, rainy evening last week, after settling in front of the television to watch Vanna spin those letters, I remembered a scheduled meeting.

With a start, I grabbed a can of vienna sausages and some soda crackers, slapped on some Brut and rushed out into the gloom. I narrowly avoided two automobile accidents and got to the meeting halfway through.

Nothing noble or meritorious about that, since 20 men had already made it there on time after braving the same weather and traffic.

The meeting was for the Triangle chapter of 100 Black Men of America, a mentoring organization that tries to reach young black men before they find themselves doing the courtroom shuffle in chains and orange jumpsuits.

There are similarly committed groups across the Triangle, across the country -- the NAACP, college fraternities, churches -- focused on improving the lot of young black males. Despite our combined best efforts, though, local TV news programs often look like an episode of "Brothers Behaving Badly." Or the NBA draft.

Earlier this week, the N.C. Community College System held its fourth annual Minority Male Mentoring Conference in Raleigh which, had you attended, would have given you some hope for our future.

The obvious question is, "Are those organizations doing any good?"

We can't afford to ask that question because the answer might be, "NO!"

More terrifying, the answer to "Are we doing any good?" might be "YES!", meaning the situation would be even worse were some of us not involved in essentially plugging dikes with bubble gum.

Face it. Until such issues as education, job opportunities and bad or nonexistent parenting are addressed, the best-intentioned volunteer programs aren't going to accomplish a lot.

But we can't stop trying. So dire is our situation that Chuck Stone, an 83-year-old former columnist and retired UNC journalism professor, called me in angry frustration last week to ask how he could help us help these young men.

Trust me: Chuck's words weren't nearly that genteel.

That same angry frustration led Fulton County Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington to recently throw white lawyers out of his courtroom so he could talk dude-to-dude with black criminal defendants.

Wake County District Court Judge Craig Crooms applauded Arrington's "intent" but noted that it was unethical for a judge to talk to a defendant without an attorney present.

"I try to talk to [young kids] before they get to court," Crooms said. "It's often too late when you've got 13-year-olds convicted of armed robbery" and already jaded by previous courtroom experiences.

"I had one 15-year-old kid I called 'Thurgood,' " after the late Supreme Court justice, he said.

"This kid had such an intimate knowledge of the system that he already knew the fine distinction between a 'frisk' and a 'search,' " Crooms said. "That's something some attorneys don't know."

That's also why, he said, "anytime someone wants me to speak to young people at a forum, on a panel or in a church, I'm there."

So are a lot of us -- even if it means dashing out into the rain while eating viennas for supper.

Does it do any good, though?

Don't ask.