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Misericordia social work students plan night of music, fun and food at Ole Tyme Charley’s in Plains to benefit Dinners for Kids program

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Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey “Circus Xtreme” coming to Mohegan Sun Arena

<p>Did you ever wonder how you would entertain a traveler who wanted to spend a two-week vacation in Wilkes-Barre?</p><p>My friend Silke from Leipzig, Germany, made it easy when she visited one September a few years ago.</p><p>&#8220;Show me your typical American life,&#8221; she said on the Thursday she arrived.</p><p>&#8220;OK,&#8221; I said. &#8220;How do you feel about singing?&#8221;</p><p>Before she was unpacked, Silke was sitting next to me in the alto section at choir rehearsal, joining in a very appropriate song, &#8220;All Are Welcome,&#8221; and charming the St. Nicholas&#8217; choir master, who obviously assumed she was a regular church-goer. We didn&#8217;t tell him she&#8217;d grown up under Communist rule and considered herself an atheist.</p><p>In fact, when he rattled off a sentence people would hear during a Mass in Germany, &#8220;<em>Der Herr sei mit euch</em>,&#8221; which means &#8220;The Lord be with you,&#8221; Silke smiled sweetly, innocently, unknowingly. I jumped in, filling the silence with the ritual response.</p><p>Oddly enough, I knew that response because, decades ago, when I was a little kid, I&#8217;d found a German prayer book at my grandmother&#8217;s house and she&#8217;d told me how to pronounce <em>&#8220;und mit deinem Geiste,&#8221;</em> which means, &#8220;and with your spirit.&#8221;</p><p>Oh, what a typical American life I lead, foreign phrases and all.</p><p>Actually, Silke may have begun to suspect my life wasn&#8217;t so typical when I met her at the airport, not with a car but with a bus ticket.</p><p>Since driving to Newark, New Jersey is not high on my list of fun activities, I took a Martz Trailways bus to the Port Authority in New York City, hopped on a shuttle to the airport and escorted my guest home to Wilkes-Barre the same way, in reverse. It was better for the environment, I explained.</p><p>In my continued zeal for helping the environment &#8212; and getting exercise &#8212; we also walked the 1.5-mile distance between my house and the Times Leader a few times, when I didn&#8217;t need a car for distant assignments. In fact, we did so much walking around town, Silke burst into joyful applause the few times we did drive somewhere.</p><p>My foreign friend accompanied me to interviews &#8212; meeting student actors at a college play rehearsal, people preparing for the Riverfront Parks&#8217; annual Chalkfest and organizers getting ready to give tours of the Nathan Denison House in Forty Fort. She enjoyed practicing her English &#8212; which is fantastic, by the way &#8212; with all these new people.</p><p>Before her two-week visit was over, we&#8217;d hiked at Hickory Run State Park so she could see the Boulder Field and at Ricketts Glen State Park so she could see the waterfalls. We befriended a newcomer to the area that we&#8217;d met at church &#8212; oh, yes, Silke continued to come and sing at both rehearsals and Mass &#8212; and took that young woman along on the waterfall hike, where we encouraged her to persevere in her new job.</p><p>Silke and I cooked together, too, when we weren&#8217;t savoring my husband&#8217;s homemade pizza or having lunch at Boscov&#8217;s. We did some do-si-doing at a Wyoming Valley Contra Dance in Kingston and, unable to find an ingredient she knew as &#8220;quark,&#8221; settled on Greek yogurt from Wegmans so she could bake cheesecake.</p><p>Our two &#8220;big&#8221; excursions were a day trip to Lancaster, where we enjoyed a buggy ride and saw an Amish farm, and a day trip to Noxen for a fall pow wow, where we sampled fry bread and satisfied some of my friend&#8217;s fascination with Native American culture.</p><p>Looking back, it was all enormous fun &#8212; but typical? Somehow I don&#8217;t think so.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Mary Therese Biebel</div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_marytheresebiebel.jpg</photo0><caption0>Mary Therese Biebel</caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Mary Therese Biebel is an Arts &amp; Entertainment reporter for the Times Leader. Reach her at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Beyond the Byline: Times Leader reporter welcomes foreign friend to ‘typical American life’