What happened to this file '/tmp/mysql.sock'

[JW]

Hi all,

I was fine running mysql, and for some reason, after the most recent
reboot of my machine, I get the following error and I try the following
subsequent commands to try to figure things out:

[root@lm4267 /]# mysql
ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)

[root@lm4267 /]# mysqld_safe
Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/data
040520 18:47:39 mysqld ended

[root@lm4267 /]# ps -ef|grep sql
root 2829 2620 0 18:47 pts/3 00:00:00 grep sql

[root@lm4267 /]# mysqladmin variables
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (2)'
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock' exists!

[root@lm4267 /]# find /|grep "mysql.sock"
[root@lm4267 /]#

---> What happened to my file "mysql.sock".
---> How do I recreate it?
---> thanks!