A Legacy Of Soap

Soap. Now, I’ve always been about the bar, rather than liquid or body wash, which always ends up getting everywhere. On more than one occasion, the liquid stuff has nearly managed to take me out in the shower with its oil-slick nature. So I stick with the trusty bar, my old friend and companion.

This is a story about soap.

A crucial aspect of my recovery has been the incredible social support I’ve received from family and friends along the way. When I was arrested, hospitalized, evicted, and fired from my job because my bipolar disorder went into a complete-yet-sadly-predictable spiral after years of ignoring and/or self-medicating it with alcohol, there was no debate that I had a ticking clock of fewer than 60 days on my life if they didn’t dig deep and reach out at least one last time.

One of the reasons I’ve always had that support from my parents in particular are the challenging relationships they each had with one of their own parents who were role models of how they didn’t want to raise us. Though it was mostly spoken of in hushed tones, the depression and anxiety have passed in clearly traceable history down the maternal line of my family. Unfortunately, my grandmother treated them much the same way I would decades later. A family tradition going back generations.

However, it’s my paternal grandfather we’re talking about today. Haney Richard Pearson Sr., a.k.a. “Big Haney.” My father, as the junior, was obviously “Little Haney.” Less obvious though, was my great-grandfather, “Son Haney.” His real name was Edward.

Southern black families. Never try to understand our naming conventions.

At 80, dad still quietly carries a seething grudge against Big Haney that is, at its core, driven by the only slightly apocryphal tale of how he once went to the corner store for some bread…only to come home some eight years later, surprised that the locks had been changed. As we now know Attention Deficit Disorder has a clear genetic path down the paternal line, though nobody spoke about it, of course–some genuinely believe he simply got distracted and didn’t think anything of his time away.

By every account (even dad’s), Big Haney was a gifted baseball player of near unparalleled skill in Vienna, VA in the early-to-mid ’40s. So much so that one of the legends of his time away includes playing in the Negro Baseball Leagues. I don’t know if that’s true, as I was never allowed to meet the man, and dad never speaks of him. I found a reference to a “Haney, p” for the Nashville Elite Giants, but it’s impossible to say that’s him for certain. Family legends are like that.

I bring this up because as a youth, my father too was a gifted athlete. The older he gets, the better he was. Originally his game was also baseball. Unfortunately, every time he went out on the diamond, he could hear the old men sitting in the shade constantly saying “he’s nowhere near as good as his daddy.”  So his passion shifted to basketball. I can say how good he was there. I saw it with my own eyes.

Because of his anti-role model, my father engaged in his children’s lives and interests and shared his love of the game with us. Thus I played from ages 6-18 until car accidents broke me. I played low post positions, mostly; Forwards and Center. While I was short for those spots, especially in high school, I had quick hands and a solid vertical. Besides, the less said about my jump shots and field goal percentages, the better. So low post for me.

I was even deliberately fouled in a high school game over 10 times because the opposing team could count on my inability to shoot a free throw, sinking only two for 25 that night.

Regardless of how often my dad took me out after work or helped out at practices, I never improved. Yet he never expressed frustration, only encouragement. Basketball was a safe place, which is why I would often go out to shoot baskets after my maternal grandmother moved in with us, the family dynamic really turned toxic, and I learned the family’s traditional way of managing the pain.

We eventually found out that I was just nearsighted enough for my depth perception to be completely thrown off and really should have been wearing glasses during the practices, games…and maybe in class to see the chalkboard.

Now you have the context for when I tell you that in the process of washing my hands in my bathroom with my trusty, reliable bar of soap; sleek and aerodynamic from months of use, it shot out of my hands–soaring several feet through the air in a high arc, right into the center of the toilet. Sliding directly down the pipe. No rim. No seat. “Nothing but drain.”

Sploosh.

You’ll also now know what I mean when I tell you this was the greatest shot of my sports career and would have made Little Haney proud.

Families leave all kinds of legacies. Sometimes it can be a tradition or a name, and other times it can be memories of trauma. Sometimes it’s an unspoken legacy of mental illness. If you’re lucky though, sometimes it’s simply the love of a game.