A poet put it very well. She said when she was older, She wouldn'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.

We read that poem, all of us, and grasped what she is saying. We do not need to sit and knit, although we all are graying. We think about what we can do. Our plans we have been laying. Instead of working all the time, we'll be out somewhere playing.

We take her colors to our hearts, and then we all go shopping, for purple clothes and hats of red, with giant brims a-flopping. We're tired of working all the time, and staying home and mopping. We order pies and chocolate fudge, and rich desserts with topping.

We crown ourselves as duchesses and countesses and queens. We prove that playing dress up isn't just for Halloween. We drape ourselves in jewels, feathers, boas, and sateen. We see ourselves on television and in magazines. 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.

by Sue Ellen Cooper Founder, Red Hat Society

To forget the people I never liked anyway,

The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,

And the eyesight to tell the difference!

In My Younger Days...

When I was in my younger days, I weighed a few pounds less; I needn't hold my tummy in to wear a belted dress.

But now that I am older, I've set my body free; there's comfort of elastic where once my waist would be.

Inventor of those high-heeled shoes my feet have not forgiven; I have to wear a nine now, but used to wear a seven.

And how about those pantyhose- they're sized by weight, you see, so how come when I put them on the crotch is at my knees?

I need to wear these glasses as the prints were getting smaller; and it wasn't very long ago I know that I was taller.

Though my hair has turned to grey and my skin no longer fits, on the inside, I'm the same old me, just the outside's changed a bit.