What's to Understand?

You know, you don't have the talk the same talk to come to an understanding. Really. 

A older Polish fella named Stanley was a drain cleaner who used to come by the old barn to get his snakes and machines repaired. I liked Stanley. He was cool guy.

He was from the mountains of western Pennsylvania, where his father worked in the coal mines. Stanley liked to tell the story of his father and his father's best friend, an Irishman who lived nearby. Both Stanley's dad and the Irishman were from their respective old countries. Stanley said that his father's heavily accented English and the friend's brogue made it hard enough to understand either of them in routine conversation. When they were drinking, they each lapsed into their native tongues.

Stanley explained that the two buddies would sit on the porch of Stanley's family home and drink on Saturday nights, recovering from the work week. As the drink took effect, they fell into Polish and Gaelic (quiet, Ron) respectively. The fascinating thing was, despite speaking different languages, they were always in total agreement. Stanley said his dad would rattle off something in Polish and the Irishman would nod approvingly. He'd then give his opinion on the matter, whatever the matter may be, in prosaic Irish. And Stanley's dad would reply in the Polish equivalent of, yeah, yeah, shaking his head in agreement. All this even though the one didn't know a peep of Gaelic and the other not a syllable of Polish.

It does make you wonder what might actually have been said. But it was a release valve for them any way you slice it.