Meeting Maya Angelou, Spring 2001, by John Gerard Tetel
From MemoryArchive
Who: John Gerard Tetel What: Meeting Maya Angelou When: Spring, 2001 Where: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
My mother’s friend and colleague Maria Tsiapera is good friends with Maya Angelou. I knew they saw each other a couple of times a year. Sometimes Maria would go down to Ms Angelou’s home and other times Maria would host Ms. Angelou. My senior year of high school, Maria invited my mom and our family to come eat with them. Other colleagues from Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill joined us as well. I was very excited when my mom asked if I wanted to come along because the year before I had read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for class.
That Sunday my mom, dad and I made the familiar journey to Maria’s house. I was asking a lot of questions because I didn’t know what was appropriate to do and say. I had never met a famous person, especially someone of such popular and academic notoriety. I remembered seeing a Saturday Night Live sketch with David Allen Grier poking fun of her abundant vocabulary and ability to make the most mundane things seem glorious. David Allen Grier was dressed in drag wearing African inspired clothing. He was making up advertisements for cereal, describing Fruit Loops as having a cacophony of flavor in a plethora of colors. It was hysterical. I determined that it would indeed be inappropriate to ask about this or what I remembered from her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Maria lived in a quaint well-wooded suburban neighborhood with small winding streets. Everything seemed normal as we were arriving, but as we rounded that last corner we saw something that shocked us. There was a huge tour bus parked outside Maria’s house! We quickly figured to whom it belonged. Apparently Ms. Angelou did not travel by plane ever and finds the tour bus a very comfortable way to travel. We saw why when she was nice enough to let us see the inside of it. It was really cool. When not driving down the highway, it could widen so it was roomier to lounge around and sleep in.
We had finger food for a while talked and introduced ourselves before lunch. Lunch was set up as a buffet. Ms Angelou was the first to serve herself as the guest of honor. As the youngest person by at least twenty years, I was next. Ms Angelou had sat down at the head of the table. Feeling slightly, if not extremely intimidated by being alone in the dining room this world-renowned author, I thought the safe decision would be to sit halfway down the table and maybe one chair more towards the other side of the table. She told me not to be scared and sit next to her. She explained how she enjoys young adults and children’s presence just as much, if not more than her contemporaries’.
Maria is a superb chef. As small talk I decided to say how much I liked Maria’s cooking. She looked at me and said, “You call her Maria, not Ms Tsiapera?” I didn’t know what to do. I remembered how she valued respecting your elders. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I remember her going into detail about the woman who taught her to read and how much she required reverence. Not knowing what else to do, I explained how I had always known Maria, I mean Ms. Tsiapera and that she was more like an aunt than my mother’s friend. I like to think I dodged a bullet with that explanation.
