Kyle - who joined a youth football league - is just beginning his school career and is scheduled to graduate this morning with the Dunmore Elementary Center's kindergarten class.

But although they're not related, the two boys - despite being 13 years apart - and their families share a special connection: Both were born hearing-impaired.

Mr. Galinsky has only 50 percent of his hearing, while Kyle is "profoundly deaf," wears an implant and communicates mostly through sign language.

The friendship between the two families started fittingly enough on the high school football field following a Dunmore-Lakeland rivalry football game in October after they were introduced by a common denominator: Rose Marie Crotti - who has both Dunmore and Lakeland blood in her.

Mrs. Crotti - a former principal at Lakeland High School and the current special services and transportation director in the Dunmore School District - introduced Kyle's mom, Rose Lasher, to Mr. Galinsky's mom, Darlene Galinsky, with whom she worked with during her time at Lakeland.

"When we were together at the game I made sure the two families met," Mrs. Crotti said. "I just felt that if Mrs. Lasher knew that someone else had gone through the same thing as her and had the same feelings, that she wouldn't feel alone. She would have someone else to talk to and possibly ask questions and guide her."

The two mothers hit if off immediately and talked on the phone several times throughout the school year. Their conversations lasted for hours as they shared separate experiences of raising hearing impaired children.

"When I first called Darlene, I thought what am I going to say?" Mrs. Lasher said. "I was so apprehensive of calling. I expected nothing from this conversation. I expected a dead-end road."

What she got, instead, was a friend - and mentor.

"We were on the phone for hours," she said, "asking ourselves, what did we do wrong? What could we have done sooner? It just breaks your heart. The first deaf person I met in my life was my son."

The two families were together again Tuesday night, talking and laughing together, chatting about everything from the difficulty of losing a hearing aid to trying to wake their children up for school in the morning.

The shared similar stories of moving their children at a young age out of special education classes and mainstreaming them into the public school system.

"Every kid wants to be a normal as possible regardless of their handicap," said Mrs. Galinsky. "(Keith) was ready, the special education teachers said he was too smart. He was thrilled he was moved."

At one point in the night, Kyle - with a crimson Dunmore shirt on - sat on the couch next to Mr. Galinsky, clad in his Lakeland High School football jersey. The rambunctious kindergarten student tossed a miniature football in the air several times, catching it on its way down.

Mrs. Lasher noted her son is awestruck whenever he sees Mr. Galinsky. The family would go to his football games and basketball games at Lakeland to watch him play.

Mr. Galinsky - who will attend East Stroudsburg University in the fall - said he sees a lot of himself when he looks at Kyle.

"(I know) what he's going through," Mr. Galinsky said. "Like how my parents taught me to be mainstream and how to get people to make me learn how to speak well."

Because Mr. Galinsky just started a new job with PennDOT, he won't be able to attend Kyle's kindergarten graduation today. "In the short time that we met as far as friendship, they are phenomenal people," Kyle's father, Tony, said of the Galinskys. Everyone agreed.

"I think it's just fate that brought us all together," Mrs. Crotti said.

By Matthew Charles Kemeny