Red Hat

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me. " Do you suppose when English poet Jenny Joseph penned that opening to her poem "Warning" in 1961 she had any notion of the movement she was creating? Over the years women privately cherished this idea of kicking over the traces and doing unconventional things. For women "of a certain age" it became the secret rallying cry - dare to be different. It wasn't until 2000, when one woman gave her friend the poem and a red hat that the Red Hat Society was born.

scottb@herald-mail.com Thelma Barney, 88, has a surprise for her children: She overcame her fear of water and cruised the Potomac River on a personal watercraft. She was one of about a dozen Williamsport Retirement Village Assisted Living residents to take a ride on the river Thursday. Barney wanted to go, she said, "for excitement and to surprise my kids. I'm afraid of water. They won't believe it. " Barney said she always has been afraid of water, and before Thursday had never been out in a boat or any type of watercraft.