PAULHAN, France -- My good neighbor Harry, a retired British fruit/produce executive, stopped by Monday afternoon to deliver half a pumpkin he had won. He mentioned several delicious-sounding recipes to consider. But he also told me how the coverage of the Super Bowl struck him as so congenial -- players embracing after the game, etc. He asked if I knew that Super Bowl Sunday is America's second-most food-consuming day after Thanksgiving. I didn't, but I'm not surprised.

Seven years ago, my wife and I bought a small house in this French village, and our family spends summer and winter breaks here. As soon as I knew we'd be in France during the Super Bowl, I began searching for a broadcast network on which I could watch the game.

To my pleasant surprise, I found that a French national channel (France 2) would carry the game live and free, which meant that I would not have to go in search of a Steelers bar somewhere in the south of France. Right after midnight on Monday, I could watch the game in my living room, warmed by a propane heater and lubricated by a single malt of my choosing.

I'm positive that I've watched every Super Bowl that's been played on TV. Over the years they have become major annual events and the seven Steelers' appearances have been "double yoi" events -- particularly since I was actually present in the Three Rivers Stadium end-zone into which Franco Harris ran his "Immaculate Reception."

French TV broadcast the game and the halftime concert by Bruce Springsteen -- but not any of the famous $3 million per minute advertisements. They opened the program about 10 minutes before the coin toss in a TV studio that was decorated with the American stars and stripes and American flags on every conceivable surface. It exceeded anything I could imagine in the most patriotic community in America on the Fourth of July.

There were TV monitors and a correspondents desk sort of like Sunday morning U.S. networks use on "Face the Nation" or "Meet the Press," but this one had a moderator and six guys of differing ages, sizes, colors and vocabularies, each holding his own cordless microphone.

The moderator spoke and, with lightning speed, introduced the sextet of colleagues for the evening/morning. My basic French is suitable for daily life here, but I struggled to follow these guys.

France 2 had two guys in Tampa -- one (a big guy) wearing Cardinals colors and the other (a little guy) with Steelers colors commenting and doing play-by-play.

So, the game begins. I had asked my wife, Beatrice, to alert our neighbors that, if in the wee hours of the morning they heard loud human sounds/shouts/expletives, they should not be concerned. It would just be Jim reacting to a "football Americain" game to decide the fate of heaven knows what!

Thanks to Internet phone technology, I was in frequent communication with our daughter Francesca, who was hosting a party of her friends at our house in Squirrel Hill. She explained stuff that I couldn't understand here from the French guys. Oh, I was also logged on to NFL.com to get a play-by-play digest and real-time statistics.

Watching the game sans advertisements was stranger than you might expect. Instead of visual bling-bling, we got talk-talk about the game.

I could tell that some of the talk was smart. The NFL wanted any person devoted enough to stay up all night but who wasn't familiar with American football to understand what was going on. One or two of the talking heads was there to teach and diagram. The other four seemed to be opining on everything and not making anything close to the sense that, say, John Madden might make.

The French were ready for the Springsteen halftime show and introduced it with excerpts from his various concerts and videos; they also showed a segment of his performance on the Sunday before the presidential inauguration. They may have commented on his politics, too. I think they reported Barack Obama's support for the Steelers.

All in all, it was a great experience in cross-cultural behaviors that demonstrated what we all know: That sport transcends cultures and athleticism is respected across the board. The French play-by-play team was ecstatic when the big plays on defense/offense were made. They just emoted sounds; their words were incidental.