They were, when they met at old Wake Forest College in the late 1930s, of strikingly similar backgrounds. One was the son of a small-town police chief in Monroe, the other the son of a small-town Baptist preacher in Boiling Springs. Wake Forest was tiny in those days, and it was a custom to speak to everyone on campus. Their friendship formed because they both were working their way through school, at several jobs, and it was tough. The chief's son had four jobs at one point. No one knew when he slept. He left school without a diploma, not uncommon in those times, on the eve of World War II. The preacher's son graduated in 1940.

But they never lost touch, and both wound up coming back to North Carolina when the war was done. The preacher's son carved himself out a nice career in the newspaper business and then worked with William Friday when Friday was president of what is now the University of North Carolina system. The chief's son worked in newspapers, radio, ran the state Bankers Association and got pretty famous in Eastern North Carolina as a conservative commentator at WRAL-TV.

It used to drive the preacher's son up the wall, watching those very conservative editorials. He'd become a Roosevelt liberal, weary of his home state's reluctance to move forward on any number of fronts.

And yet, when he and the chief's son would see each other, they'd speak of their days at Wake Forest, ask about one another's families, speak with the affection and familiarity of those who grew up sharing the same hardships and knowing each other well.

Jesse Helms was the chief's son. The preacher's son was my father. They were friends most all their lives, until my father's death in October of 2003.

When Helms ran for the U.S. Senate in 1972, and for decades after that as Helms became a famed voice of the right, my pop -- by then working in Chapel Hill -- got calls from old acquaintances from his newspaper days, guys from The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Washington Post. They all wanted the same thing: Write us a piece, or tell us on background what you know about this Jesse Helms. We understand you were in college with him and know him well. We want to know what makes him tick.

Every time, the old man said no. The calls kept coming for years. No. I asked him once why, given that some of the callers were people he knew in big-time journalism, he didn't respond. "Because," he said, "I don't care how you may differ with someone on politics or anything else. You don't give up your friends. Ever."

As the years went by, Helms sometimes would ring the house when he was in town, and he'd always call with congratulations when my father got an honor or recognition of some kind. On one occasion, I came into my folks' house when they were on the phone. I asked my father what they were talking about. "Oh, just the stuff old guys talk about," he said. "Our ailments, all that." I inquired as to what ailments the senator had. "Can't tell you," he said. "It was between us."

I'm certainly not alone in these remembrances. My own personal politics have been many miles from those of Jesse Helms', and to boot, I have worked for nearly 22 years for an organization he regarded as his nemesis. But as many people in North Carolina will attest, Helms had a personal touch with individuals he knew, and with many he didn't know very well, when it came to praising them for some triumph or consoling them in the wake of a loss, or seeing to it that they got their passports or their Social Security or any number of other things they needed. These things he did even after leaving office.

The pundits will offer multitudinous views of his legacy, and many of them will be very critical of him, to be sure. But lots of other people will separate all that from what they knew of the man, even though some of their acquaintances won't get it.

The night the preacher's son died, the first call that came in was from the chief's son. "I told Dot (his much-beloved wife) that I was just going to have to sit by myself for a while," he said to me and my mother. "And I don't mind telling you, I had to cry a little."

He was not especially well at the time, but toward the end of the funeral home visitation a couple of days later, some of my friends called to me from the hallway. Jesse Helms was on two canes, with his Dot. Family members were surprised. I wasn't. I knew they'd be there.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.