As I walked in, I could see the guitar leaning up in the booth near the back of the restaurant. Beside it was a waitress that I recognized and a small girl.

"So, do you play guitar?" I asked as I took a seat. I was making fretting movements with my left hand and strumming with my right, playing that fabled air-guitar - the one that always sounds just like whatever tape is playing on the stereo or even in your head.

Too bad real guitar isn't like that all the time. I know. I play one poorly all the time.

"Yes," she said, pointing to the guitar. I later discovered that the word guitar and my silly pantomime was probably about all she understood.

"What kind of guitar do you have there?" I asked her as I pointed to the instrument in her hand.

"Gutarrrrr," she said, obviously not understanding me at all.

"Hecho en Mexico?" I asked in broken Spanish.

"Sì," followed by a period of rapid blah-blah-blah.

Since even the great-American Fender is now assembled in Mexico, right beside all of our textile plants, no doubt, the Made In Mexico doesn't tell you a lot these days.

As for the blah-blah-blah stuff, I didn't even get a whiff of what she was saying. I can imagine how we must sound to them, especially with a southern mountain dialect like I have. How many people really speak text-book anything, let alone English?

As complicated as English can be, I can imagine the perils of the language. This is a language where "cool" can mean good, a little warmer than cold, a type of cigarette, a calm state of mind, a self image and a kids beverage (if you add aid to the end).

I am sure that there are confusing words in Spanish, like... all of them, if you ask me.

I have learned a few simple phrases. Pulling out my pitiful mental Spanish dictionary, I offered, "La guitar esta guapa." It was supposed to mean, nice guitar, but it probably made no sense.

I reasoned that out because she giggled a bit and moved the instrument to the side of the booth, only to have it lifted by the young girl at her side as soon as she walked away.

Said four-year-old girl then set about offering up a spirited, if not talented, rendition of Beat the Crap Out of the Strings. It must be an international favorite for four-year-old kids, everytime one of them gets a guitar, that is the song they play.

When I was a little lad, I think they took the strings off my guitar. Mean you say?

Try listening to "Thump, thump, twang, pluck, strum, bang, twang-ump" for a little while.

A cacophony of discordant demons could do more to disquiet even the most peaceful soul.

The more I try to communicate with Spanish-speaking people, the more I realize how utterly hopeless my limited knowledge is.

I couldn't ask "do you play guitar" in Spanish, because I only know how to say guitar. It is just like we say it.

I can order a beer, one more of anything please, I can ask where someone is or what something is, but I can't usually understand when they answer me, unless they answer in "Spainglish." Spainglish is that wonderful mixture of the Spanish and English languages that ends up not being understandable to anyone who speaks either language. I usually just nod and smile. I saw a Hispanic man in the grocery store the other day and the clerk asked him for something and he just smiled and nodded. I could identify with him. While we are all ignorant and even somewhat helpless in some ways, it is difficult to face that fact.

Oh well, at least I can still read the menu. That will have to be enough.

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