A Cup of Sugar I Borrowed: A Cultural Autobiography

On June 24, 1989, Amy Elam and Michael Brookbank married, and on their second anniversary welcomed me into the world. Born into a low middle class family, my father was in the third year of his electrician apprenticeship, barely making enough money to support his family. My mother was working at a daycare, doing all that she could to help. It would ultimately be my parents’ differences that would shape the culture I have today.

The origins of my mother and father were very different. My mother had grown up in the same area as me, but her family came from the mountains of Kentucky. Her family was a closely-knit group of Southern Baptists. My father, on the other hand, grew up in the river town, Dayton, KY. His family, unlike many Roman Catholic families at that time, became distant through the divorce of his parents when he was very young. And even during their teenage years, my parents’ cliques in high school also differed from each other. My mother went to Campbell County High School and devoted her time to the high school marching band. My father attended Dayton High School and played for their football, baseball, and basketball teams. As you can see my mom was very much the “band geek” while my dad was the “jock.” All of these factors would come into play when they would collectively raise me in the house that they bought from my mother’s parents.

Since my mother’s side was very close, most of my holidays were spent celebrating within their homes. Christmas would be celebrated at my grandma’s until my parents decided to take up the tradition, but the other holidays such as Easter and Thanksgiving were celebrated at my aunts’ houses in Cynthiana, KY. On Easter, my Aunt Gloria would let everyone walk through the stables and barns that were on her and her husband’s farm. She would show off the new baby chicks that would have just hatched the week before, and let the kids play with any sort of pet they could think of. It was my mother’s side that held the tradition, and the repeated visits to Cynthiana, KY introduced me to rural life. It was holidays like Memorial Day that we celebrated with my father’s side of the family. I remember walking down the streets of Dayton to catch a glimpse of Dayton’s Memorial Day Parade. And it was those kinds of adventures as a child that introduced me to urban life. I had recognized two different ways of life from the areas that my parents’ families were from, and it seemed that I was living as a country boy who wanted to get out into the city.

The house I’ve lived in all my life is in the country. Cattle can be seen from my room and in the summer time trucks have to haul water into our cistern. My home is approximately five miles away from the city of Alexandria. And although it doesn’t affect me now, when I was a child it had a huge affect on me. Living so far from the city and having no neighbors left my younger sister as the only friend to play with when I was still at a very young age. If I wasn’t playing, then I sat in my room listening to the FM radio. I did this until I was old enough to join the T-ball team. As I grew older, I kept using sports as means to have a social life and to have fun all throughout elementary and middle school. Sure, I had gained friends at school, but they couldn’t always come over, and during the off seasons I was often left bored in this rural area. I tried practicing, but it was always missing something: a friend to come and practice with me. The stories told by my dad about his glory days playing sports and the sights of his trophies were always inspiring, and I wanted so much to be as good as him; but I was slowly losing interest in sports when I couldn’t keep up with my team mates. I had played baseball until my eighth grade year, until I finally gave it up.

Around the time I gave up on sports, my mother’s influence came in. As I said before, if I wasn’t playing as a child, then I was listening to the FM radio in my room. I loved listening to music and this was something that I shared with my mother. She was very musical and showed me how important music was in her life. Whenever she would drive my sister and I around, she would make us listen to her CD’s. When I was young I hated the music that she would show me, but I eventually grew accustomed to it. Even now I’ll listen to either the bands my mother introduced to me, or the bands I found that were influenced by the artists my mother liked. Alongside my mother’s influence in music was her brother. My Uncle Matt had also marched in his high school’s band and he played bass for a punk band. He introduced me to many bands that became some of my favorites, and he pushed the idea of playing music on me.

In middle school, I joined the symphonic band and played the saxophone. And in the eighth grade I had become bored with it, just like I had became bored with sports. Unlike my mother and uncle, I did not want to join the marching band. Instead I wanted to learn how to play guitar. And on my thirteenth Christmas, I was given one. The guitar would allow me to enjoy my time alone at home and it gave me something that I would continually want to invest my time in. It wasn’t until I started going to church that I found what I wanted to do with my new ability. Earlier, I had briefly mentioned that my mother was raised Baptist and my father was raised Roman Catholic. When my parents married, my mother married into the Catholic Church and became Catholic herself. I was christened when I was only a month old, and when I was growing up my family would occasionally attend mass. When I was ten I had my first communion, but shortly after my family didn’t see church as a priority anymore. I had continued my belief in a God, but I didn’t like the idea of having rules. I lived under a simple philosophy that God would reward me if I did good things. It was a philosophy that I think many people live under, when they don’t want to be told what to do. It wasn’t until my freshman year that a friend convinced me to go to her church (which so happened to be a Baptist Church) that I started to go more frequently than I had when I was younger. Eventually, I became a “born again” Christian and started diving into what it really meant to be one. I started to read my Bible and searched for truth between what was right and wrong, but most importantly I began trying to love people like Jesus had, regardless of how a person looked or behaved.

One reason I believe I wanted to love everyone is because my grandmother’s second husband is from Egypt and happens to be Muslim. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, I saw how the ignorance of the American people was affecting the lives of normal, innocent Muslims. My step-grandfather is one of the nicest men I know, and he never did anything to be thrown into a box or looked at differently. Our religion may be different but that can’t keep me from loving him, because he is still the step-grandfather that has been very nurturing to my family. Because of the relationship I have with my step-grandfather, I have tried to approach every single person with the mentality that they shouldn’t be judged by their outward appearance.

The new set of beliefs I gained and the lifestyle I had chosen to live had set me apart from my peers in high school, who seemed to get their lives caught up in drama. I was never interested in partying, but rather I found myself spending my free time playing bass guitar for the church’s worship band. This worship band would eventually become an experimental rock band that would take its ministry out on the road. I would stay in this band for four years until we finally broke up.

While we were still active though, I had taken a major role in writing for the band and found myself writing lyrics for the songs. My mother, who had later gone to college and became an English teacher, always encouraged my writing and never let me forget how talented I was. She always had classic books lying around and always provided knowledge on pieces that I was working on. I truly believe that I got my talent of writing from my mother and she inspired me to become a teacher, which leads me to where I am today.

My life was built on a foundation laid down by my parents. Their backgrounds combined would produce mine, and allow me to become the person I am today. The aspects of my culture that shaped my life the most are music, religion, and literature. Each aspect led to the next until finally they started building onto each other, causing my culture to continuously build. It is here in college, where I can see my culture most defined as I begin working towards the future; a future where I hope to see myself as a teacher, helping his students develop inside of their own cultures and rise to their own desired levels of success.