Maria and I went to Whitehall, N.Y., at struggling but beautiful canal town in the Adirondacks. We went to the old Skene Manor, being painstaking and lovingly restored by volunteers. The manor sits high above Whitehall and they serve tea, soda and sandwiches. And offer tours of the restoration. We encountered a wonderful group of women from the Red Hat Society, a worldwide social organization for women over 50 devoted to fun, freedom, friendship and fulfillment. And they mean it, these lovely people were having a blast and happily consented to being photographed.

Their group was partially inspired by a Jenny Joseph poem “warning,” which began this way:

“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.

With a red hat that doesn’t go and suit me.”

The group has more than 70,00 members in the U.S. and 25 other countries, and there was red and purple all over the place. They seemed wonderfully defiant to me, blowing off conventional notions about what older women ought to be wearing and doing. Good for them. It was a privilege to take their pictures.