hey graduate tonight. Our two sons. Two guys with great hair. It seems like just last week they were shy, mumbling kindergartners -- unsure what to say to each other.

Sam Shaughnessy (L) and Lex Mongo (R), as kids, and again in 2006.

Truly, not that much has changed. Newton North grads Alexis Mongo and Sam Shaughnessy don't look that much different, just bigger. And they still mumble. Across America it is an article of faith that you need subtitles to understand word-slurring teenage boys. Generally speaking, the only times you can make sense of what they're saying is when they're mad or when they need something. And they always seem to need something. Usually food or car keys.

Alexis and Sam were thrown together quite randomly back in the fall of 1993. My wife, Marilou, received a call from another parent at Newton's Underwood Elementary School, wondering if we'd volunteer to be a METCO (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity) host family. That sounded easy enough. Our incoming kindergartner had two older sisters but no brothers, and this would be a nice way to give him an everyday running mate, another kid who could come home and play after school and maybe even sleep over now and then. For Alexis, it was a chance to walk to school in the morning.

Thirteen years later, Sam and Alexis are best friends and college bound, with enough stories to script their own After School Special or high school sitcom (``That Millennium Show"?).

They were 5 years old on that first day of school when Sam's mom took him over to meet his new friend.

``We were in the multi purpose room where we ate lunch and had assemblies," recalls Sam. ``All I remember is that Lex had a really high voice and he had this high-top, fade haircut."

``In those years we had dismissal at 1 o'clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays," says Alexis. ``The bus wasn't until later, so I'd go home with Sam for a couple of hours to play before the bus came. Then I started staying some nights, especially Fridays because we had soccer on Saturday morning."

They've shared the same corner room on our second floor for 13 years, playing hours of soccer, Wiffle ball, basketball, and snow football. In the early years they shared Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and later built a wrestling ring in our basement. They broke a window playing volleyball in the house, and Alexis suffered an eight-stitch cut over his left ear when he fell on a metal milk box while dunking a Nerf ball on a front porch makeshift hoop.

Alexis got the lay of the land pretty quickly, and now there are times when I ask him where I might locate something in my own house. He has a house key, a toothbrush, and a Christmas stocking. During the high school years, when we'd go to Michigan to visit relatives, he'd sometimes stay at the house by himself, locking doors, taking out the trash, and bringing in the milk delivery. He'd make himself pancakes, Jell-O, hot dogs, and cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli. He had his own stock of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

``Also mustard, ketchup , and hot sauce," adds Sam. ``Lex loves condiments more than any person on the planet."

Alexis' s mom, social worker Raquel Ojeda, registered him for METCO right after he was born in 1987. She did the same thing for his sister, Paris, who was born three years later. Alexis is close to his dad, Thomas Mongo, who lives in Brockton, and he's also tight with his mom's boyfriend, Keith Crichlow, a truck driver for Garelick Farms. But the young man who grew up in Roxbury has spent a lot of time in Newton over the past decade.

METCO was founded 40 years ago by the education committee of Boston's NAACP for the purpose of improving the quality of education for Boston's black students. Competition for METCO slots is fierce, and the program has provoked considerable debate through the years.

``Without METCO, who knows what my life would be like?" Alexis wrote in a school essay. ``Statistically, I'd either have dropped out of school, died, or ended up in jail. I refuse to be another statistical black male. I plan to be successful and break down barriers in my lifetime."

When he enrolls at UMass-Amherst in the fall, Alexis will become the first person in his family to attend college directly after high school. He'll also have a much shorter commute to class. Early wake-up calls are a fact of life for all METCO students. Theirs is a long day with a lot of bus time, especially for those who engage in after-school activities.

A 6-foot southpaw guard, Alexis was part of North's two-time state championship basketball team. Fans in a few Bay State League gyms teased him about his resemblance to rapper/actor Ludacris, but that didn't stop him from making a whopping 80 percent of his three-point attempts, including a memorable trey against Central Catholic in the EMass championship at the Garden. He plans to play intramurals at UMass, then maybe try out as a walk-on candidate with the varsity Minutemen.

During his basketball days at Newton North, he had to get up at 6 a.m. to catch the METCO bus, and on many game nights he didn't get home until after 11 p.m. That's why he stayed with us so much. It made his days shorter. It also made our days better , and it gave my children exposure and understanding that many baby boomers never had.

I grew up in the White Bread Capital of the world, spacious Groton, about 40 miles west of Boston. I think there were three black families in Groton in the 1960s. There was little opportunity for us to know kids of other colors. We grew up ignorant and maybe a little afraid of that which we did not know.

It's different for our children -- in a good way. At Newton North in 2006, being black, white, or Asian matters a lot less than it did 35 years ago in Central Massachusetts. METCO is part of that. Alexis brought a specific style and culture to our suburban home.

Sam's sisters teased Alexis about his baggy pants and his giant earrings. Kate learned to braid his hair. She calls him ``Lil Bro," and he calls her ``Big Sis." He's the only non-Shaughnessy allowed to touch the complex television remote control, and when Kate got her driver's license and was not allowed to drive non-family members under the age of 18, she got special dispensation to drive Alexis. She took his official senior photo on our front lawn, and when neither of his parents made it to UMass for that first state championship game in 2005, he told her, ``I'm glad someone from my family was able to see this." On their AOL instant messaging buddies list, both girls catalog Alexis under ``family." When she was a senior at North, Sam's oldest sister, Sarah, was asked to write a paper on race and led the thesis with, ``I have a black brother."

Alexis and Sam weren't far into junior high school when hip-hop tunes started thumping behind their closed bedroom door. It was during those middle school years that my son's sisters constantly reminded him, ``Sam, you're not black."

Sam is bound for Boston College in the fall. He plans to visit his longtime roommate at UMass. And Alexis is certain to spend some time at Chestnut Hill.

``This has been a great experience," says our METCO son. ``My education has been 10 times better, the best of both worlds. A lot of people in Roxbury think white people are snobby and rich and only care about themselves. They think all white people are racists. This taught me that it's just the opposite. It helped me believe that I didn't need to go to an all-black college. If you want to make it big, you've got to take risks."

He made it big at Newton North. And tonight he graduates. With his brother.