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Glamour Girls go Outrageous

TIM CURRAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO

Members of the Glamour Girls, an east Portland chapter of the Red Hat Society, pose in front of their transportation for the day, the Outrageous Jetboat. Kneeling, Outrageous Skipper Tom Patton and Glamour Girls Queen Mother Racine Delgado. Standing, from left, JP Pierce, Rosalie Lopo, Rosanna Arpin, Shirley Henkel, Darlene Klock, Teri Johnson and Daisy Managhan.
Submitted Photo
The Glamour Girls, an east Portland chapter of the Red Hat Society, took a day trip to Astoria recently. Not by car, oh no; the Red Hatters boarded the Outrageous Jetboat for the eight-hour round-trip, “freezing our buns off, but we had fun,” one chilled river cruiser said.

Organized by Queen Mother Racine Delgado, this was the longest trip yet for the Glamour Girls Chapter of the Red Hat Society.

More than 10 years ago, after a group of friends received a red hat and a poem written by Jenny Joseph titled, “Warning” depicting a woman of middle age wearing a red hat and purple dress, they in turn adopted such attire, publicly meeting to celebrate the change of life. In 1998, the Red Hat Society began to evolve, engendered by Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, Calif., who enterprisingly shaped the society from its beginnings and is referred to as the Exalted Queen Mother.

Initially Cooper and others began meeting for tea parties in their regalia of red hats and purple outfits. The idea caught on and others wanted to be apart of this phenomenon of fun and color celebrating life after the age of 50.

Since its beginnings, the Red Hat Society has grown into a large conglomeration of many smaller groups established locally by anyone 50 and over. As their own entity, each group chooses a Queen Mother who leads and guides. Other than age, the only requirement is a member must dress in RHS attire, which is the red hat and purple dress or outfit. The exception for those who are younger is they must wear a pink hat and a lavender dress or outfit. RHS members are known as Red (or Pink) Hatters.

One of many east Portland chapters, the Glamour Girls regularly go to lunch together, attend plays, take trips and schmooze at popular gathering places — usually one serving libations — in east Portland.

The Red Hat Society celebrated its 10th anniversary in January this year in Las Vegas, Nev. The RHS has grown to nearly 40,000 chapters nationwide and has made a global statement, allowing a positive approach to middle age for women as opposed to older, traditional views.

The impact of this society is an outpouring of networking women, retail sales, credit card benefits, travel, literature and much more.

The RHS connects and supports women in their pursuit of fun, friendship, freedom and fulfillment. Their motto is: “We’re a ‘dis-organization’ with the aim of social interaction, encouraging fun, silliness, creativity and friendship in middle age and beyond.”

While embracing the change of life with zeal and enthusiasm, Red Hatters share life’s happenings together not only in small groups at restaurants like Cleary’s Restaurant & Spirits in Menlo Park Plaza (where the Glamour Girls chapter evolved), but in big groups at places of entertainment and large gatherings known as Funventions.

To learn more about the Red Hat Society, go to www.redhatsociety.com, or if you’re interested in joining a local chapter, call Glamour Girls Queen Mother Delgado at 503-866-1783. You’ll be glad you did. In October, the Glamour Girls are planning an adventure in Hood River for an orchard tour. No, they’re not going via the Columbia River again. They’re taking the more conventional mode of transportation: the horseless carriage.


Warning
by Jenny Joseph

When I am old
I will wear purple!
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 sandals,
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 with
my stick along 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 pickles for a week,
and hoard pens and pencils and beer
mats 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!
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