members live it up
with trips, good times
Ladies in red having
fun in prime of life
Red Hat Society
members live it up
with trips, good times
BY CLARE MARIE CELANO
Staff Writer
Members of the Manalapan chapter of the Red Hat Society have done their civic duty and are now spending time having fun doing the things they want to.
MANALAPAN — What on earth could possibly cause 14 women to don fancy red hats and purple outfits and take a bus ride to the Plaza Hotel in New York City for "high tea?"
Turning 50.
A group of "mature" women — members of the Red Hat Society — are on a mission to change the way they see themselves and the way the world looks back at them.
The mission statement of the Manalapan chapter of the national society is to "just have fun." The members of the Manalapan chapter call themselves the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
According to Joan Carr of Manalapan, the elected "Queen Mother" of the group, the club is about having fun. She said that she and two friends came across members of the Red Hat Society while they were on vacation in Tennessee in the past year.
Carr said they spoke with some of the members of the society and were intrigued by their ideals and beliefs. She said it was then that she decided to start her own chapter of the women who wear red.
These ladies are taking time off from the "busy work" that has consumed most of their lives to find time at least every other month to get together, discuss "stuff," go on field trips, talk about books and many other things. When the women take a field trip they don their wonderful outfits which, Carr said, attract all sorts of attention.
The ladies made a recent visit to the Plaza Hotel in New York City and strolled in all decked out in their red, purple and pink regalia. Carr said a woman must be 50 years old to wear a red hat. A lady who has not turned 50 wears a pink hat and is called a Lady in Waiting.
When asked what the women do in the organization, she said "nothing." "These women have all been so busy for so long that they feel they deserve a break," said added.
There are no rules in the club, according to Carr, and if a woman forgets there are no rules there is an elected official called an anti-parliamentarian to remind her.
Carr said she’s tired of people who think that women over the age of 50 are "dead," that they are no longer sexy and no longer vital. She said women "of a certain age" have worked for years to raise funds for charities and helped out in their communities. They have baked a zillion cupcakes, carpooled everyone else’s children, worked on school committees, staffed volunteer organizations and basically, have spent years taking care of everyone else.
"Now it’s time to take a break and celebrate our own lives," Carr said. ‘We’ve all ‘been there, done that,’ you know? We say what we like, we don’t shrivel up like dying flowers anymore."
According to the organization’s Internet Web site, the Red Hat Society began as the result of a few women deciding to greet middle age with "verve, humor and élan." According to the Web site, the group’s philosophy is that "silliness is the comedy relief of life." Members believe that "they are all in this together, so they might as well join red-gloved hands and go for the gusto."
Carr said the group got its beginning when a woman named Sue Ellen Cooper was visiting a friend in Tucson, Ariz. Cooper bought a bright red fedora at a thrift shop and thought it was quite dashing, Carr said. A year or two later she came across the poem, "Warning" by Jenny Joseph. The poem speaks of the author’s desire to do the things she hasn’t yet done.
Cooper subsequently gave her best friend a vintage red hat and a copy of the poem. Her friend gave the same gift to another friend and so on and so on and so on. The national society now numbers more than 2,000 women who have bought red hats and apparently have heeded Joseph’s "Warning."
"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me," Joseph wrote.
The lines, "I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired, and make up for the sobriety of my youth" reflect a wistful regret that there is just never enough time to do the crazy things that make life fun and unique.
She ends the verse by stating: "Maybe I ought to practice a little now, so people who know me are not too shocked and surprised when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple."
When asked if the women feel funny wearing the colorful garb, chapter member Cheryl Langlais laughed good-naturedly and said, "Well, you do get stared at, but in a good way. We usually make people smile."
Member Monica Sapirstein, who wears a pink hat and is a Lady in Waiting, said she can’t wait to turn 50 so she can get a red one.
"I feel left out," she laughed.
She loves being in the group and said, "You don’t have to give up looking good just because you’re older."
Carr summed up how she feels about the group members and the way they dress up for their field trips.
"If you should see a group of ladies wearing red hats and purple outfits, you will find yourself smiling; fun is contagious," she said.