by John Dowd
When most of us look back on our lives, we tend to think either about regrets or happy memories. When speaking about his past, local author Robert Guest looks at everything the same, within a vault of memories. As he says in his new book, “The Vault,” he tells the interesting tale of his memoirs, from the perspective of referring to himself as a C-minus Christian.
He came to that title with inspiration from Johnny Cash and said, “I’m going to stick with it because I know myself.” Throughout the book, Guest writes on his varied life, from childhood to adulthood, about challenges and adventures. He does so with humor, religious insight and some poetry thrown in. His book talks about how religion changed and affected his life. “That’s where the notion of the vault comes from,” said Guest. To him, there are memories of things he did that he was not proud of. Because he believes he had trouble living up to the values of a good Christian, he compares memories to things stored away. His book starts as a metaphor comparing those memories and where he keeps them to items stored in a vault. With memories of life spoken of as items stored in boxes, there are ones he is less proud of that are hidden away, under dusty cloths.
In his book, Guest explained that he never did well in school and believed further education to be impossible. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and had a rough upbringing with his parents separating and his mom eventually sneaking off with her son to Vancouver, Washington. This is where Guest’s grandparents lived. He spoke about his grandparents as “the salt of the earth,” and the many lessons he learned from them. He tells the story of his grandmother’s rooster Rosco, with whom at ten-years-old Guest had troubles with. The rooster, according to Guest, was a bully and so one day he struck the rooster out of anger and thought he had killed it. Feeling so bad, he retreated into the raspberry bushes. After a couple hours, “I didn’t want to live this horrible life of a refugee anymore,” said guest. So, to his surprise, when going to the house to tell of his ill deeds he found that the roster had just ben lain unconscious.
Never holding a lifelong career, Guest jumped around parts of Canada, the U.S. and Haiti. He talks about how the time he lived in the latter was during the reign of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Duvalier was a self-proclaimed president of the Haitian people and, during the time Guest and his family lived there, imposed curfews, closed schools and incited violence in the streets. Running a children’s orphanage at the time, Guest and his family retreated back into the United States. They ended up in Stevensville with almost nothing about 35 years ago, and Guest worked numerous jobs to make it. According to Guest, a vision of a light over the Bitterroot Valley hinted to him that this is where they were meant to go.
With the tales of Rosco, Haiti and many others like them, Guest shares stories of troubles and lessons, chronologically working through his life. According to him, the stories started as tales for his kids to tell them about his life and childhood. After friends and family read them, they encouraged him to create a book. “I have been told I write in a way that makes it interesting,” said Guest. “I was overwhelmed by the response to the book,” he added, talking about his book’s reception.
Guest’s book, “The Vault: Memoirs of a C-Minus Christian,” can be found on Amazon and through local bookstores.