n l LAST LOOK

PHOTO BY RACHAEL SANTILLAN

It was a sea of red and purple at a recent meeting of local Red Hat Society members at Hudson Bay Seafood in Fayetteville. Hundreds of Red Hatters will descend upon the city for the society’s state “funvention” on Oct. 13, 14 and 15, at Holiday Inn-Bordeaux. The Red Hat Society is dedicated to fun for ladies over age 50 (although younger “pink hatters” are invited, too). There are more 63,000 Red Hat chapters worldwide. For more information on the “funvention,” call Andrena Dickens at (910) 424-6174.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall 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.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

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.

— Jenny Joseph, with the poem titled “Warning,” which inspired the Red Hat movement