Scribblings from Storage: The Confessions of an English Major is the latest work by Charles Francis Guittard, a 1964 Baylor Arts & Sciences graduate. Through letters to his family and friends, the book provides a record of the author’s extended adolescent angst as well as memories of growing up and maturation. It includes the last years of high school through his years at Baylor as an English major, his years obtaining a law degree, and a few more in which he said he sought to obtain his footing –– personally, socially and professionally. It is enhanced by 18 illustrations created by Amanda Colborn, a Baylor art graduate

To gain more insight into Charles Guittard and the new memoir he’s completed, we spoke with him about the book and the story behind its creation.

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Charles, we’re familiar with your previous historical books about your grandfather, Francis Gevrier Guittard, and his career as the founding chair and a professor in the Baylor history department. Your current memoir seems to be a complete departure from that kind of writing, as it is neither an autobiography nor work of history.

You are right –– it is a memoir only. It is actually my second memoir about my growing up, the first being Thinking Things Over: The Reflections of Two 80-Year-Olds, which I wrote with my wife Nancy.

What is the primary difference between this current memoir and your first one?

Well, in our previous book, Nancy and I both tell our stories of growing up. Mine are about my parents’ efforts to “polish me”  and ready me for adulthood. Their attempts were well-intended but only partially successful. Nancy’s stories are funny anecdotes about growing up with her family in Dallas. But most of the book is filled with our candid emails leading to our marriage in December 2021.

You waited until you were almost 80 to get married?

No, I married first in 1971, then again in 1986, and finally in 2021 after my second wife Pat died. No one else in my family on either side has done as much marrying. I’m pretty sure I’m through.

Why do you call your new memoir Scribblings from Storage?

The short answer is that this memoir is based on the letters, essays and other writings, cartoons and odds and ends collected in storage units I had rented over the years. I would haul it all around with me when I changed cities, which I did several times. Can’t believe I did that, but I did.

How did you make a memoir out of those random items? 

In reading over my letters and those of my father, for example, certain themes just kept jumping out at me –– particularly those about overcoming my social anxiety, especially regarding dating, as well as those concerning my choice of college and then a profession to follow college. The difference between the current memoir and the first one is that it is more reflective, clearly more focused, and is all about me! It was much harder to write as it is more revealing. A little scary.

Did you at some point second-guess your choice of Baylor for college?

I certainly did. I almost transferred to Rice after my sophomore year. I was assigned to room with a champion pole vaulter at Rice –– no joke –– and could have hung out with athletes had I transferred. That would have been a welcome step up socially, for sure.

Why didn’t you?

Well, first, Baylor accepted me to its Honors Program for my junior year, which made me feel better about Baylor. Second, Rice was okay for me to enter as a sophomore rather than a junior, so I decided to stay at Baylor. I couldn’t see spending five years as an undergraduate. Also, I’ve read somewhere that Larry McMurtry left Rice because of the required calculus course.

Was staying at Baylor a good decision?

Yes, no doubt, but not so much because of the Honors Program, which I was in for a year. Although I didn’t know it at the time, staying at Baylor turned out to be the best decision I could have made because of the opportunities I have had after my Baylor graduation.

What opportunities?

Many, but mainly to add something to my grandfather’s legacy at Baylor in the history department. I was able to make a contribution facilitating, I am told, the creation of Baylor’s Ph.D. program in history. And then I was also inspired to produce a trilogy of his life and times based largely on his letters with family along with the letters I received from 75 of his students still living in 1978 when I started researching his biography.

In your current memoir, what might be most of interest for Baylor students and graduates, since your time as a Baylor student was more than six decades ago?

I hope my story will resonate with many people, whether they attended Baylor or not, because it follows my struggle to determine who I am and what I might be able to do. I passed through several personal crises in the 10 years between the end of high school and getting married to my first wife. I am, and was, the introverted type who did well in school but didn’t get on so well socially, with girls or with joining a fraternity. I tended to hang with a small group of somewhat nerdy guys. It took me a while to figure out how to call girls up for a date. Also, no joke.

Did living at Baylor agree with you? Tell me what you remember about your time on campus.

I was into the Baylor-Aggie rivalry, Baylor football –– Ronnie Stanley, Ronnie Bull, Don Trull and Lawrence Elkins, living at Penland Hall, the antics of the NoZe Brotherhood (but I was not a member), going to the movies with my buddies or to Howard Johnson’s or Ira’s on LaSalle, ice cream at Vandervort’s, ping-pong at the SUB, and bridge at the Raleigh Hotel. I liked many of my teachers, especially the ones I had my last two years. I especially enjoyed ordering pizza –– the best –– from George Tseng’s Pizza King on Dutton and having it delivered to our room at Penland. The teachers I dug the most were usually for English, philosophy and theology courses, some German courses, but not the science, economics or math courses. In one instance, I took a great teacher for a science course I wasn’t interested in –– geology –– and a great course in psychology from a teacher I didn’t think could cut the mustard. And I was also an enthusiastic part of Baylor’s intercollegiate debate team, although I’ve nothing to brag about there.

In the book it says you participated in a couple of protests, one at Baylor and one later at SMU Law School.

Yes, I guess I had a little of that college protest spirit thing back then. At Baylor in the fall of 1962, a former roommate and I protested Judge McCall’s closing, on the grounds of offensive language and subject matter, the Baylor Theatre’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s prize-winning play “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” We quickly drafted and circulated a written attack on the administration’s actions. My part was a brief anonymous satire making fun of redneck preachers, while my roommate contributed a carefully written essay contending that the administration’s actions contravened traditional Baptist notions of freedom of expression.

What was the effect of your protest?

I’m not sure, but I doubt very much changed at Baylor. In my case, my parents received a mostly friendly warning letter. In my roommate’s case, and I have only his word for this, he was pressured to leave Baylor –– which he did, transferring to the University of Texas. In the spring of 1963 after the play’s cancellation, the entire Baylor drama faculty, save one teacher, gave notice of their intention to leave and join Trinity University in San Antonio.

You’ve subtitled your memoir The Confessions of an English Major. What is that about?

The confessions part we’ve already talked about. The English major theme has to do with my urge to write from early on in high school through college and law school, right up through my completion of the historical trilogy and two memoirs. In my memoir this theme comes full circle, as I excerpt from my earliest preserved writings right on up to those written in recent times.

Charles, we know you like to keep busy. Are there any other writing projects you have in mind?

I have a short children’s book I promised Nancy we could do, and maybe a book of the comic book panels I’ve been producing using AI. That’s all.

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Scribblings from Storage is now available from online booksellers, including Amazon.