Keith Beddingfield

You knew you were almost there when you saw the white wooden fence. Past the swinging metal gate and down the always pleasant lane. Activity always seemed to be already underway when we’d arrive, normally on Sundays, and almost every Sunday. We never got out of the car without being accosted- in a good way. Whether it was another cousin, a cheery aunt or uncle, or Maw-maw or Paw-paw, you could count on a myriad of greetings and welcomes. Enterprise was always like coming home.

Normally, I wouldn’t go directly from there into the house, because all the boys knew that the game was at hand. The baseball. The pecan trees, planted years prior in a perfect grid pattern, were at such spacing that the tree designated as first base was just the right distance from home plate (located at the front door step). And the tree at second base was just the right distance from first. Somehow, I knew kids playing ball in the streets in Brooklyn had to count on their imaginations to conjure an adequate ballpark, but for us it seemed like Enterprise provided the perfect setting. Home runs rocketing off our plastic bats were, well, let’s just say prodigious. It was always incredible how a whiffle ball made everyone a big league-er. And we played for hours. You’d think that there would be disagreements, fights, and general mayhem (especially with mostly boys playing). But I don’t remember any.

I simply remember the feeling of belonging.

It was that belonging at Christmastime, when Paw-paw would always cut a tree just a little too tall for the living room, and the way the top branch bent over at the ceiling in a perfect kind of way.

It was that belonging when aunts, uncles, and cousins would visit, from exotic places like Hawaii, or Panama, or from that wonderful state of Florida. I always associate those visits with unbelievable quantities of food, because Maw-maw knew exactly how to feed a crowd.

It was that belonging when everyone talked and shared. One thing about being an Ousley is that you never had to force conversation. And its purpose was always clear to me. Not to share adversity, not to complain about the latest public upheaval, but simply to love and care for each other.

That belonging was really what made Enterprise so special to me. Whether they were local, or were visiting from far away, every Ousley cousin knew that feeling. And we still see it in each other’s eyes to this day.