by Vicki Brown

Created on: November 21, 2007   Last Updated: January 08, 2008

I first heard of the Red Hat Society when I was looking for a red hat to wear on Pentecost Sunday. Red is the liturgical color for Pentecost and a friend and I had made a pact to wear red hats to church that day.

I went to a re-sale shop and looked around, finally asking the woman at the counter if they had any red hats. She asked me why so many women came in looking for red hats. I told her my story but I couldn't imagine that many Episcopal women were looking for red hats for Pentecost.

Someone in the store said it was probably women who belonged to the Red Hat Society. I asked what that was but she didn't know other than they wore red hats. I was intrigued mainly because I love hats.

I googled "Red Hat Society" and went to their website. Wow, I thought, this is a big thing. I read all about it and checked out the hats for sale. Well, that did it. I was hooked! There was a place to look up local chapters and then to send them e-mails indicating that you were interested. I sent e-mails to several chapters and heard from only one and that was to tell me they were closed to new members.

Several months later, I tried again this time with more luck. I went to my first Red Hat Society Gathering (we don't have meetings). I had ordered a purple dress on-line and my daughter and granddaughter had given me a red hat for my birthday.

I was a bit intimidated at first but caught on to the general lack of seriousness and joined in the frivolity.

Let me give you a bit of background before I go any further. A woman in California, named Sue Ellen Cooper, had a friend who was turning 50 and not handling it well. So, being a true friend she looked for a gift that would cheer up her friend. She found a framed copy of the Jenny Josephs poem "Warning" and a red hat. The idea was that the poem and the hat could hang next to each other and be a reminder that life is what we make it.

The friend loved it and when a friend of hers was turning 50 she gave her the framed poem and a red hat. And so it went until there are now hundreds of chapters covering the entire country full of women wearing purple garb and red hats. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the first line of the poem is "When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple. With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me." Hence the purple garb and red hat.

So, what do we do at our gatherings? We have fun. Our mission is to greet aging with fun and silliness. We are a dis-organization. We have no rules and no agenda. My husband and sons found

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