Several Hispanics were sitting at a table in a restaurant, and the waitress was having a hard time taking their order. I overheard a man say that if you move to this country, you'd better learn to speak English. English is our country's official language he said. I agree.

"No way I'm learning Spanish," said the man's dinner partner. With that I disagree. Learning another language is a good thing, especially when you go abroad. The heavy mental lifting a new language requires may stave off dementia and Alzheimer's. And look at it this way. Learn another language and you can hear what others might be saying about you. That brings up one of those words writers avoid. It is difficult to spell. It's Latin, and it has "phobia" attached to it, never a good thing. Xenophobia.

Do you have an irrational fear of foreigners? Let's hope not. Neither do I, but for a long time I sensed foreigners were different in ways that mattered, in ways I could not comprehend. You could say my eyes were closed.

Growing up in Lincoln County in the '50s and '60s provided little opportunity to meet people from other countries. I wasn't sure what to expect if I were to meet a foreigner. For a long time it seemed I would never even meet a foreigner.

I didn't serve in the military and go abroad. Two years' Air Force ROTC at the University of Georgia was close as I got to military service. But it was at Georgia that I began to see people from Asia, Europe, and South America. Like ships in the night, we passed each other silently. No acknowledgement at all.

It wasn't until I started teaching at the college level that I came to know people from other countries. I remember the first foreign student I taught, Setsue Hayashi, a petite Japanese girl, polite to the max, and bright. As I taught her, I recalled images from my dad's photo album of Hiroshima, rubble as far as the eye can see, I-beams drooping like melted candles. The vanquished enemy. Yet, here was a woman from Japan. She was sweet, polite, and attractive. There was nothing to fear.

My first trip to Europe opened my eyes a great deal. I spent two weeks in Bavaria, stayed in a home overlooking the Danube, and ate side by side with Germans in their home and at restaurants and festivals. I remember the beautiful Bavarian countryside— white church steeples rising from dark green forests—and I remember driving past the huge BMW plant just off the autobahn outside Munich. I owned a car made there once. Germany, I thought, is not that different from back home.

A few years ago, I met an entertaining character from Milan, Italy, Paolo Bazzoni. We became friends. Together, we'd go out on the town. Paolo is cosmopolitan, being from Milan and having lived in England, Argentina, the USA, and now China. We stay in touch even though he lives in Beijing, where he is the chief financial officer for a corporation.

Back in 2001, my sister, Brenda, and I spent two weeks in Europe. We traveled through Paris, Madrid, Valencia, Alicante, Rome, and Venice. We traveled by train through Spain as silver olive groves passed by our window and ate paella in a home in Alicante, Spain. We saw castles atop canyon walls in brown, dry Spain, became allies with a young woman from Copenhagen when we missed a flight in Paris, and stood among people from the world over in long lines while touring the Vatican and the Coliseum. But that's not my chief memory of that trip.

This is. It's a bit early in the afternoon, around 2 p.m. I'm leaning against the corner of a building in Alicante, while Brenda and her daughter, Benton, shop. The sun is warm against my face and to my right the Mediterranean Sea sparkles. Palms move lazily with the breeze. It's tropical and serene. Suddenly, a man headed directly for me breaks my reverie. On he comes, striding with purpose, making me edgy. I felt my body tense. As he approaches, he slows, becomes cautious, stops within two feet of me and studies me. What now? With halting words, being as clear as he can, he says "Do ... you ... speak ... English?

"Sure, pal. I'm an American.

"Thank God, me too" he says, "Where is the train station?"

"The train station," I say, "is 300 yards in the direction from where you came." Off he trots toward the station. So there we were. Two Americans each thinking the other was a foreigner. Each unsure, a tad nervous.

I know people from other countries, particularly some fascinating people from London, but I focused on Japan, Germany, and Italy for a reason. Those three countries formed the Axis, the triumvirate we fought in World War II. They were the enemy. Kill or be killed back in the day. My friend, Paolo, owns a vacation home in Tuscany. I'm free to go there whenever I want. Things change don't they.

In my youth, images of how people from other countries were different swirled through my mind. It all came to naught. Sure, we have different customs, different cuisines, and different beliefs, but when you get right down to the brass tacks, people are people. Learning another man's language would help us understand that.

Email Tom with feedback and ideas for new columns. tompol@ earthlink.net