Sometimes, TV can give us a little taste of home

Clark Gable, in the old 1936 movie “San Francisco,” more or less saved my sanity.

It played on Czech TV the month I lived in the basement of the 95-year-old school in Holešov. At that point, I was very depressed and homesick. And luckily, it was subtitled rather than dubbed so I could understand the original dialogue as spoken. You don’t realize how wonderful it is to hear your native tongue when you’re all alone and far from home. Good old Clark Gable: How wonderful it was to hear his voice. There were several American programs on TV there, but usually they were dubbed so all I could hear was a harsh Czech voice speaking the dialogue.

In Slovenia, things were much better. Besides local and Italian stations, I was able to get CNN International and Sky News from England, as well as Eurosport. The local stations primarily featured “talking heads,” but in the evenings they played American sitcoms such as “Rosanne” and “Green Acres,” which were subtitled. It helped me learn the Slovene language since I could read it as I listened to the dialogue.

CNN kept me up to date on world events, and I became something of a news junkie. In fact, I was able to see the 2003 breakup of the space shuttle Columbia as it happened, as well as the tragic terrorist takeover on the first day of school in Beslan, Russia. It lasted three days and more than 330 people, including young students, were killed. Sky News kept me informed on the increasing tensions before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The coverage of winter sports in Europe was wonderful. I could view Alpine and Nordic ski races from beginning to end on weekends as well as ski jumping. When I lived in Slovenia, the world champion ski jumper one year was a Slovene youngster named Primož Peterka. He was that country’s hero for sure. When I visited relatives in Austria, watching ski races was a must. Skiing is the national sport in Austria, and they knew all the skiers’ names and what countries they were from, as well as their successes and failures. American Bode Miller was in top form then, and it tickled me to hear my relatives call him “Der Bode” (the Bode).

When I lived on the Slovene seacoast I could also get a couple of Croatian TV channels. They were delightful because they almost always subtitled the English language shows. On holidays such as New Year’s Day or Easter they usually broadcast a special American movie such as “The Sound of Music” or “Gone With the Wind,” a real treat for me. During the ski season, however, there was often an unusual type of problem. A Croatian brother and sister were excellent ski racers and often winners on the podiums. So when Ivica (ee-VEE-tsa) and Janica (yawn-IT-tsa) Kostelić arrived home in Zagreb, normal programming was preempted. They were greeted with live TV coverage and the downtown celebration lasted for hours.

Back when I taught in Czech Republic, I was amazed that many of my students had favorite American TV shows. One of the most popular was “Murder She Wrote” and they liked to discuss what Jessica Fletcher had done in the most recent episode. It occurred to me that perhaps I got along with my students so well because I reminded them of her. We were similar in age and both had short blond hair — but Jessica was much more clever than I could ever be.

Another surprise was to learn the prime-time soap opera, “Dallas,” was a favorite among folks of all ages. One evening I was chatting with a friend about the show, and when I mentioned the episode where J.R. Ewing was shot, she exclaimed, “Oh no! J.R. gets shot? Who did it?” That was in 1997, and in America J.R. had been shot 17 years before in 1980. I felt just horrible for spilling the beans about an event that had not yet aired there. So sorry, my friend.

Johnson, of Grangeville, worked in three different European countries — Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovenia — in the 1990s and early 2000s. She can be reached at johnsondixie@hotmail.com.