I am not a big fan of the cold winter months. I don’t have anything against the actual months… I just don’t like cold weather. Here’s the problem. I’m always cold.

However, this time of year brings about one of my favorite things. Sweatpants. You COULD wear them in the summer time, but then they really would be sweat pants.

Sweatpants are like comfort food. They just make you feel good. Comfortable.

But they would not be so comfy it it weren’t for all the elastic in them. I mean if they had buttons, and snaps, and zippers… they’d be all confining… and not so cozy any more. Elastic is the fairy dust… the golden egg… the magic wand of sweatpants.

We have Thomas Hancock to thank for elastic. He was an English inventor who founded the British rubber industry. He came up with a machine called The Masticator… which took rubber shreddings and such.. and recycled them into the first elastic type strips.

In 1820, Thomas Hancock patented elastic fastenings for gloves, suspenders, shoes and stockings.

I’m not sure who thought to put it into waistbands. But many credit Nicholas Winthrop.

Winthrop thought up the idea in 1837….. after a formal dinner. He ate too much…. pants too tight .. and thought… Elastic would feel better. He told everyone about his ingenious idea that night.

However, that night turned fateful. His carriage went over the side of an icy bridge, and no one ever saw him again. BUT. To this day… when the moon is full…. people have witnessed an outline of sweatpants running on the bridge. And you can here a faint cry… “AHA…. elastic.”

But I got WAY off track. I like sweatpants because they are comfortable. And sometimes… in this life… we need a safe place.   Things happen that seem hard, or tough, or even unfair. So we look for things that might comfort us.  Somewhere that is gentle, and undemanding, and secure.

A bowl of ice cream…. or mashed potatoes.  A walk in nature. The hug from a loved one. Or… A spiritual moment. Heck. Even a pair of sweatpants. We all find our way through things…. in our own way. In our own time.

And that… to me…. is quite a marvelous invention.

Yep.  I love sweatpants.

“Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always. – Hippocrates”