John Maietta
John Maietta is a rock star of history.
He has groupies, like Nancy Bayuk. She has come to see him maybe 70 times over the past 10 years, every time he gives a talk at the Jewish Community Center in Harrisburg.
It’s an over-used cliche, but Maietta makes history come alive. He makes it fun, not focusing on the dates and names that made history so boring in your high school classroom, but relating it to your own experience in a way both entertaining and educational.
The success of this endeavor has surprised no one more than Maietta himself.
Following a civilian career in public relations and one in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard that saw him rise to the rank of colonel, Maietta, at age 60, decided to re-invent himself and to go back to his first love—history.
After a deployment in Iraq—his last stop before retiring from the military—he had brief stints handing out census forms and working the polls for the 2010 election.
“I thought, ‘I gotta do something more meaningful with my life,’” Maietta, now 72, mused during an interview at Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill.
So, at a time when most of us are winding down professionally, Maietta decided to take advantage of his GI Bill benefits and enter graduate school at Shippensburg University to pursue a degree in applied history.
He embarked on this journey with some trepidation.
“I had never studied history professionally or academically,” said Maietta, who lives in Upper Allen Township with his wife Judy. “In fact, I got two ‘B’s’ in college—one was in gym and the other was in Chinese history. So, I didn’t have a good experience with history in college, but it was something I came to enjoy.”
His professors at Shippensburg were young enough to be his kids; his fellow students his grandchildren.
“It was always fun,” Maietta said, of returning to school as a senior citizen. “When we did group projects with these youngsters, I would do most of the work, but anyway that’s the kind of person I am.”
Instead of a thesis, Maietta opted for an internship exploring the idea of giving public lectures on history.
A contact at Messiah Lifeways told him about a lecture series the retirement village offered to its residents called “Pathways.”
The contact suggested that Maietta dip his toe into the water by presenting a program on his experience in Iraq, as well as a posting he had served in Germany helping with World War II commemorations throughout Europe.
The other came through a history professor who had served as his mentor at Shippensburg. As a result, Maietta started giving history talks to residents of Willow Valley, a retirement community in Lancaster.
While slowly building his resume as a guest lecturer at retirement communities, public libraries and an assortment of luncheon groups, Maietta spent several years as an adjunct history professor, first at Shippensburg and then at York College.
But he derived more enjoyment giving his talks to fellow senior citizens whom he found “very intellectually engaged” in the subjects he was presenting, in contrast to 18- and 19-year-old college kids who were just getting their history course ticket punched on the way to an unrelated degree.
Most in the audience for Maietta’s history lectures are his own peers in their 60s and 70s. He often begins his talks saying, “We are historical figures ourselves.”
“When I talk to older people, they can relate to the references I make,” Maietta said. “When I talk to older people about the Cold War, when I make references to a skit by Monty Python, when I tell a joke or reference some musical singer from the 1950s, all these things with older people, it connects with them. I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me afterwards and said, ‘You know if history had been taught this way when I was in school, I might have enjoyed it.’”
The popularity of the talks has soared since the reopening following the pandemic. Maietta estimated that he had presented well over 60 talks in just the first six months of 2022.
He has about 10 regular clients, including retirement communities and libraries, but he’s given programs to more than 50 different organizations and groups.
One is the Jewish Community Center in Harrisburg, where he recently gave a talk on the history of the automobile in the United States.
“He’s a really nice fellow,” said Bayuk, who never misses one of Maietta’s talks. “He’s very interesting. He always talks about something different.”
Maietta’s lectures cover a broad range of topics, from the trivial—like how the states got their names and where Christmas carols come from—to deep dives on Islamic art and architecture, and on the nature of the faith itself.
“I spent three deployments in predominantly Muslim countries, so it’s kind of interesting to me,” Maietta said. “We have a very active Muslim community in the area.”
As for his own personal interests, Maietta is partial to the history of ancient civilizations. He is also drawn to American history from the late 19th century into the early 20th century.
His talks from that period include the history of immigration to the United States, the impact of World War I on the home front, and the Jim Crow era, in which Maietta presents stories of African-Americans who excelled despite profound social, legal and political roadblocks.
His most popular in-demand topic?
“By far, the amazing history of ordinary things, from aspirin to the zipper—just where these ordinary items in our everyday life came from,” Maietta said. “I’ve given that program 27 times.”
To reach John Maietta, email jmaietta@verizon.net.
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