Fifty used to be the new 40, but now, according to the cover of a recent AARP magazine, it turns out that 60 is the new 30. Clearly, nobody in America is actually aging.
But for members of the Red Hat Society, turning 50 has become a rite of passage, a time to celebrate eccentricity instead of botox. As Kathy Gee says, "We're determined to grow old with lan and have a great time doing it."
Gee is a member of The Red Hat Mamas, one of 45 Red Hat Society chapters in Utah. The national organization was started in 2000 by a Fullerton, Calif., woman who was inspired by a poem written by an English poet named Jenny Joseph. The poem, called "Warning," is Joseph's wry prediction (written when she was 29) that when she became an old woman she would "wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me."
Joseph is now 71. On a Web site about her there are two pictures, one hatless, the other in a golf cap; however, the picture is black-and-white so it's not clear whether she turned out to be the kind of old woman she envisioned. No matter, though. Her poem has taken on a life of its own, becoming a mission statement for thousands of women around the world who reserve the right to age with less dutifulness and more outrageousness. The poem extols any old woman's right to not only wear mismatched clothes but to "sit down on the pavement when I'm tired and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells and run my stick along the public railings and make up for the sobriety of my youth."
And, as a prelude to actually being old, the poem ends with this kicker: "But 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."
There are Red Hat chapters in most senior centers in Utah, but there are also chapters full of 50-year-olds who think of themselves in the old woman apprentice stage. A few members, like 48-year-old Lisa Rasmussen of Salt Lake's Spicy Hot Red Hatters, are under 50 and therefore apprentices to the apprentices. These women wear pink instead of red, lavender instead of purple; they are only allowed to wear red when they reach 50.
"This adds an element of fun to aging, which we think is invaluable to women in our society who have learned to dread aging and avoid it at all costs," according to the society's Web site, www. redhatsociety.com.
There are now 16,314 Red Hat Society chapters worldwide, a 10-fold increase in just two years. In Utah the chapters include the Red Hatted Mad Hatters in Salt Lake City, The Cats in the Hats in Ogden, the Hot Lips and Purple Hips in Sandy, and the Red Hat Rowdies in St. George.
Belonging to the Red Hat Society is "not being afraid to age," says member Marianne Harman. "We're over 50 and we're proud of it." How much over 50 they are isn't any of your business, however, because apparently glorifying old-womanhood has its limits. Old, says member Shirley Swindell, is about "the shape you're in."
The groups have no rules, no dues, no stress, says Harman. Members show up if they feel like it. They go out to dinner together, often having so much fun and creating such a commotion in their red hats that other women approach them, find out what they're about and join up.
Barbara Forrest of the Spicy Hot Red Hatters heard about the society from a friend in Florida and checked out the Web site. All Salt Lake chapters were full so she posted a "Help! I'm an orphan" message, found Harman and started her own chapter. That makes her the Queen, in Red Hat parlance. Last summer, she joined 200 other Utah members for a statewide meeting, where "we just sat around and ate and the Belly Dancers With Hattitude (a chapter in Ogden) danced." There is also a national convention once a year.
The Red Hat Mamas of Salt Lake City include a police officer, four women who work at Valley Mental Health and several women who work at the Matheson Courthouse. Two of their younger members recently turned 50 and "passed over," says member Kathy Gee. "It's called a red-uation." Their oldest member is 82.
"We're all aging, but we're all doing it well," Gee says. "We're all very active and having a good time. Not one of us would you catch sitting home and moping."
Most of the Red Hat Mamas are in their 50s and 60s, so "we're not quite at that stage where we do whatever we damn well please," Gee says. "We're all professionals so we have to have a certain amount of decorum." There is always time, in the future, to follow the poem's manifesto to "pick the flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit."
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com