The belt my son wore to Friday night football is the one I bought him when he was sixteen.
The belt my son wore to Friday night football is the one I bought him when he was sixteen.
Two belts I ordered for my son after a night in the home bleachers this October, and the six reasons I would do it again, from a woman who handed a whole county its packages for 28 years.
Connie Mayfield · Claremore, Oklahoma · 5 min read
I am 66 and I carried the mail on a county route for 28 years, so I am not one for putting things on Facebook. The only thing I have ever written that strangers read is the sign on our gate, which says the dog does not bite and does not get up. That dog is Deputy, an old basset hound, and he lives with me and my husband Dale on two acres outside Claremore, Oklahoma.
This letter is about our son Travis, who lives down in Fort Worth and calls every Sunday. The two belts I am writing about are the Victor and the Wilfred, from Iris and Nora, a small boutique down in Austin. The Victor is all black with a plain black buckle. The Wilfred is a wide tan belt with a big square silver buckle. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, as long as I could tell it the way it happened.
Travis drove up one weekend in October, and that Friday we all went to the football game over in Owasso, where our daughter Kelli lives. Home bleachers, stadium blankets, the whole family in one row. On the row in front of us sat Harlan. Harlan was on my route out past Catoosa for all 28 years, and I know that man by his mailbox, which he painted to look like a bass. When they played the anthem, Harlan stood up and hitched nothing. He had on jeans and a flannel shirt and a wide tan belt with a big square buckle, and it looked like it had been made for him. Travis stood up next to me and hitched his jeans twice before the song was over. At halftime I leaned down and asked Harlan, plainly, where he got that belt. Read on.
Harlan in the bleachers. Kelli took this at halftime when he showed us the buckle. He said I could use it if I left his face off, because his wife does not let him on the internet.
Here is what I had been looking at all game. Travis still wears the belt I bought him when he was sixteen, for his first job sacking groceries. Dale punched two extra holes in it with his awl when Travis went off to college, and somebody punched two more since, and none of them line up. The tip curls up like a dry leaf. A grown man drives four hours to see his mother and spends a football game holding his pants up. Harlan told me he had one for Friday nights and a black one for Sunday, and that his granddaughter found them both.
I will tell you something from the route, and it is only my opinion. I carried a lot of little flat boxes with belts in them, and a good many of them came back the other way. From what the wives told me at the box, it was nearly always the buckle or the holes. I figured that is where these were headed too.
A grown man drove four hours to see his mother and spent the whole football game holding his pants up.
The day they came. I opened them on the kitchen table before Dale got in from the barn, because I knew he would want to try them on, and he did.
I ordered both that Sunday night, after Travis had gone back to Texas. I had them sent to our house so I could look them over before I mailed them on to Fort Worth, and Dale tried each one on in the kitchen to check the buckle, which is what he called it. It comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
No holes to wear out on the Victor
The Victor has an automatic buckle. You slide the strap in and it locks in small steps, so it fits where he needs it and not where somebody punched a hole twenty years ago. There are no holes in the strap at all. Dale’s awl can go back in the drawer. If Travis has a big Sunday dinner at my table, he lets it out a step, and nobody has to know.
The Victor on the bed with a white shirt, the way I pictured him wearing it. No holes anywhere on that strap.
No more holes. He slides it in, it clicks where he wants it, and it stays put all day.
Darla K., SkiatookAll black, so it goes with his good clothes
The buckle is black and the strap is black, and the buckle face is a plain smooth plate with nothing on it. There is also a version with a textured buckle face, if your man likes a little more going on. Mine does not. It sits under a white shirt like it belongs there and does not shine at anybody in church.
Dale checking the buckle in the kitchen, with Deputy supervising. I had to ask for it back.
All black, nothing flashy. He wore it with his gray slacks to our granddaughter’s wedding and it looked just right.
Peggy Jo L., CowetaA fine texture on the strap you notice up close
From across the room it is just a good black belt. Up close the strap has a fine diagonal pattern pressed into it, and the edges are stitched. It is the kind of thing a man does not notice and his wife does. The listing says genuine leather, and it looks like it.
The pattern on the strap is nicer in person. It looks like it cost a lot more than it did.
Rhonda S., IndependenceA square buckle you can see from the top row
The Wilfred has a broad buckle in brushed silver, square with rounded corners and wider than the strap. Brushed means it is soft and dull, not shiny. It is the buckle I saw on Harlan from one row back, and it is the kind a man can find in the dark when he is getting dressed before the sun is up. It takes a plain prong and a row of holes, the old way, which suits a pair of jeans.
The Wilfred on the porch bench, waiting to go in the box to Fort Worth.
That square buckle is what sold me. Brushed silver, not shiny, and big enough that he does not fumble with it.
Lavonne T., HarrisonA wide strap made for jeans
The Wilfred strap is wide and sits well in the loops of a pair of jeans, and the leather has a lightly burnished finish, so it looks like it has already been somewhere. It comes in black, tan, coffee and red brown. I picked the tan because that is what Harlan had on and I am not proud. It only comes from 41.5 to 45.5 inches in belt length, so I laid Travis’s old belt out on the kitchen table, measured it, and went by the size chart. I would tell you to do the same.
Dale checked this one too, out at the truck. He said the buckle worked fine. I said I could see that.
Wide enough for his work jeans and it looks good with boots. He wears it every day now.
Carol Ann W., LamarOne for Sunday, one for Friday night
That was Harlan’s system and now it is Travis’s. The Victor goes with his good pants and a white shirt. The Wilfred goes with jeans to the game. Between the two of them he is covered for about anything a man in Texas gets invited to. The Victor comes in sizes from 41.5 to 51 inches in belt length, and there are twelve men’s belts in this collection altogether, all listed as genuine leather.
I mailed them both to Fort Worth. That Sunday Travis called, the way he does, and said, “Mama, I threw the old one out. Do not tell Daddy.” Dale was sitting right there. He looked up from the paper, which is about as much as anybody gets, and said, “Where’s mine?”
Bought the black one and the tan one for my son. He called to say thank you, which he does not do for socks.
Wanda F., SperryThe Victor and the Wilfred, against what he was wearing
You can let him keep holding his pants up, like I did for longer than I want to say. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Holes punched with an awl
None of them in the right place
A tip curled up like a dry leaf
Hitching his jeans all game
Nobody asks where he got it
An automatic buckle, no holes
All black for his good clothes
A square silver buckle for jeans
A wide strap for Friday night
His daddy asked where his was
About the price
The Victor is $49.95. It was $100.00. The Wilfred is the same, $49.95, down from $100.00. Prices like that make me suspicious. I spent 28 years handing people boxes, and you learn a lot about a company from which boxes come back the other way. So I read the whole page looking for the catch, and I have not found one. They came with free shipping, they looked like the pictures, and neither one has gone back.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these come in small runs and the good colors and sizes do not stay in stock long. Their words, not mine.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots. The same things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If the man you love is still wearing a belt somebody bought him in high school, this is where I would start. A belt is a small thing to fix, and he will not fix it himself. Take a look before this run sells through, because once it is gone, it is gone. And if you see Harlan, tell him Connie said thank you, and that his mailbox still needs paint.
Connie
THE VICTOR & THE WILFRED
Each belt, the Victor and the Wilfred
- Victor: automatic buckle, no holes in the strap
- All black, smooth or textured buckle face
- Fine diagonal texture on the strap
- Wilfred: broad brushed silver square buckle
- Wide strap in black, tan, coffee or red brown
- Listed as genuine leather
- Twelve men’s belts in the collection
- Free shipping
Sale on now, half off. Once this run is gone, it is gone.