So there I sat one recent Saturday, eating truffles and apricot scones in a tea room while ridiculously attired in a red tassel cap and a purple sweater.
No, I'm not color blind. And, yes, I do have a fashion IQ, albeit double digit.
On this occasion, however, I donned a red cap and purple sweater fresh from Goodwill Industries in vain attempt to mesh with the bold outfits of the five members of the Finleyville Red Hat Society.
Putting my tassel cap to shame, they featured bold red hats overflowing with red feathers and flowers, brims and bows, all countered by ostentatious purple dresses busy with straps, boas, fancy purple thingamajigs and curious purple hickey-dos.
I met this proud gaggle of red-hatted, purple-gowned gals in Ann's Berry Tea Room in South Strabane in what might sound like comic relief in an off-Broadway production or, perhaps, the nightmare of some poor sap who ate too much spaghetti sauce.
Save for their garish getups, these likeable Red-Hatters mostly were tame -- mostly, mind you. In truth, these Red-Hatters were dressed to kill in their eye-catching wardrobes that serve as proof of membership in a burgeoning organization whose mission is to help women celebrate their ripening age of 50 and older.
On this occasion, the ladies were cutting loose for a few hours by eschewing rules and convention in favor of displaying middle-aged chutzpah to an unwitting public.
"We all have attitudes, some worse than others," said Jeanne Murdock, a Monroeville lady who is a member of the Finleyville group.
Her sister, Queen Mother Linda Fleischer, is a retired teacher from Finleyville who always enjoyed wearing purple dresses. She doesn't like the Queen Mom title because her mother, Anna Mae Yatsko of West Mifflin, also is a chapter member.
They were joined by Linda Dudzik who recently formed the Goody Two Shoes of Monongahela chapter of the Red Hat Society. She's seeking members.
"At this time in life, we're ready to have fun," she said.
Members 50 and older earn the right to wear red hats and purple dresses to public outings. Members younger than 50, including Jeanne's daughter, Kelli Murdock, 34, of North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County, must don lavender dresses and pink hats.
What's one to think when one sees ladies in red hats and purple dresses?
Racquel Gnagey, the daughter of tea room owner, Marsha Gnagey, said she thought the bedecked women were gathering in the tea room to talk about "menopause and hot flashes." Marsha, who has welcomed eight Red Hat chapters to her tea room on Country Club Road, has two red hats stashed in a drawer that were left behind.
"They are always delightful, but every group is different" she said. "Ladies are taught to be reserved, and now they are coming out of their shell. Finally, they are caring for themselves. Mostly, they are very lady-like."
Mostly.
So I was enjoying cavorting with the Finleyville Red Hat Society in the tea room that fine afternoon when I learned another Red Hat Society had gathered on the second floor.
That group, The Scottish Country Dance Red Hat Society of Pittsburgh, consists of female dancers who get together in red and purple to taste, titter and talk.
As for the Scottish Country Dance Red Hatters, wearing something different does not embarrass them. "We're used to men who wear skirts," said Susan Shegog, 50, of Bellevue.
Sue Ellen Cooper, now 59, started The Red Hat Society in 2000 in Fullerton, Calif., as a means of throwing restrictions to the wind once women reach an age when they no longer have familial obligations.
And the organization has tapped the mother-lode spirit in women ready to free themselves, at least for a few hours, from societal shackles. In 3 1/2 years, The Red Hat Society has grown to 16,257 chapters in the United States and 17 foreign countries, and now claims more than 250,000 members.
She describes the society not as an organization, but as a "disorganization."
It's web site, www.redhatsociety.com, lists all chapters with contacts and notes how members are "greeting middle age with verve, humor and elan." The only rule for society members is there are no rules that were the bane of female existence the first 50 years.
The society's inspiration stems from a Jenny Joseph poem, "When I Am an Old Woman," that states, "I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me," and continues with poetic proclamation that she'll spend her pension on "brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals.
"I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired," the poem continues, "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."
She vows to "go out in my slippers in the rain and pick the flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit."
Sue Ellen's own "Ode to the Red Hat Society" begins as follows:
A poet put it very well. She said when she was older.
She couldn't be so meek and mild. She threatened to get bolder.
She'd put a red hat on her head and purple on her shoulder.
She'd make her life a warmer place, her golden years much golder.
This age-earned, cut-loose philosophy does specify one rule. Members must wear red hats and purple dresses when they go on group ventures. But women view it as an act of returning to their childhood when they dressed in crazy outfits, now without admonishment.
"I don't think the majority of us have regrets about the way we lived," Sue Ellen said. "We're pretty happy with our lives and our families. We're not flouting the rules of society. We just do what makes us happy today, and we don't worry about what others think.
"We do like attention and enjoy not being ignored."
She said men once had an organization that had no rules and did flout society. "They were called pirates," she said, noting the general civility of womankind.
Jill Stuart Moncilovich, a South Strabane resident and member of the Pittsburgh chapter, said the group "gives me permission to be me." She made her red hat from a raw card of wool. "You forget the pretense, be yourself and enjoy," she said.
Barbara Oleck of South Fayette, said she already experienced a mid-life crisis and solved that problem by flying to England. At 40, she must wear pink and lavender, but she enjoys the refreshing combination of female camaraderie and tea. "It helps you back into and get ready for the mid-life crisis," she said.
Some members use made-up names such as Hat-afina and use royal titles of queen, countess and duchess. For a few hours, they shed their regular persona and replace it with regal flamboyancy.
Swallowing a truffle, I tipped my red tassel cap to middle-aged gumption.
Which brings us to the last stanza of Sue Ellen Cooper's "Ode:"
We laugh, we cry, we hug a lot. We keep each other strong.
When one of us goes out for fun, the rest all go along.
We gad about, we lunch and munch, in one big happy throng.
We've found the place where we fit in, the place we all belong.
First Published: January 4, 2004, 5:00 a.m.