Leather Belt 181111

      No this is not about me getting beaten with a belt by a merciless father.

      Joyce bought me a leather belt back around 1980. It was very nice and fit well. As you know a belt usually comes with 5 pre-punched holes in it. At the time I used the center punched hole to buckle it and I weighed about 190 pounds. Our daughter and I started going to karate classes 5 nights a week and after a while I went to the 5th, tightest spot on the belt and eventually had to punch 2 additional holes to cinch it up tight enough to hold my trousers up. I was down to 162 and Joyce even told me not to lose anymore weight. Fast forward to the mid-nineties, long after we ended karate classes and moved back to Missouri. I was up to 205 and had the belt on the 1st notch, stretching the belt out as far as it would go. After retirement when I was on my beer diet I dropped back to 195 and was back to the center punch on the belt. And then along came October 19th of 2017 when Joyce went into the hospital and stayed until January 2nd of 2018. In those 42 days, I lost 25 pounds down to 170 and now I am resting at 169 and back to the holes I had to punch to cinch the belt up tight enough to hold my pants up. It is amazing how much weight one can lose when the person you love more than anything in the world is struggling for life in a hospital. It is not a diet I recommend.
      Just in 2016 I had to dispose of a leather belt I had bought in 1968 that belt lasted 48 years, so I guess I have another decade on this one I have now. I don't expect to outlive the belt I have now, but one never knows about life.
      Copyright Bill Weber 2018 and beyond.