I Lunched with the Red Hat Ladies (and Survived)

“MEET ME with my friends at Gallopers Sports Club,” instructed my mother.

“Your friends?  Who are they?”

“They are ... the Red Hat Ladies,” she said with a dramatic pause.

Gulp.  That is an intimidating social occasion for any male, or anyone under 50.  Lunch with feisty older ladies bedecked in red hats and purple dresses, determined to be noticed and heard.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

Who are the Red Hat ladies?  Pay heed and respect if you see them out and about.  They are not a mad gaggle of nannas, but a local offshoot of the biggest women’s social network in the world.

The Red Hat Society started out in the USA in 1998, when founder Sue Ellen Cooper discovered a red hat in a thrift shop and decided to spread the good cheer.

She found the poem “Warning” by Jenny Joseph, and that was a catalyst to add the purple and get active.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

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.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

Now there are 40,000 Red Hat chapters around the world, stacked with intelligent, curious and outspoken women.  A woman becomes a Red Hatter when she decides she is not going to be invisible, and is going to have a voluble good time.  

The first Red Hatter I discovered was my friend Jan Macintyre, a former equal opportunity officer, and a woman of courage with a wicked sense of humour.  I was not surprised to find my chatty and MENSA-minded mother was also a member.

 Can't see my Mum. Photo Nicholas Falconer Sunshine Coast Daily.

I made sure I dressed neatly and polished my shoes.  I walked in to Gallopers with my near-two-year-old son and conversation paused.  Many sets of piercing eyes snapped onto me.

I could nearly hear them thinking “Who is this male?  Not another one about to dump a squawking grandchild on us!”

But once they saw I was prepared to engage in serious and insightful conversation, they peppered me with sharp questions.

They had years of work experience in the public and private sectors, and are not afraid to issue prickly barbs about politics.

The manager came over and with a big smile, said hello and asked … how was the meal?

The smile became somewhat fixed as the Red Hatters, naturally, freely gave him their opinion on how to improve the meal and service.

The laughter and the hearty giggles resumed.  I quietly sat on the edge of the group and the conversations as I fretted about Guy, who daintily smeared his hands over the glass wall panels.

“Just let him roam free,” one said, waving her cake fork and smiling.  “Can’t get into too much trouble here.  Carpet on the floor and he can’t get out.”

Common sense and words of wisdom.  If you see a group of ladies out in red hats, have a chat and have a listen.  Carefully.

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Baby Boomers and their Cars

THE GREY haired gent got close and whispered to me, worried.  “Read your blog.  We aren’t going to run out of oil,” he stated flatly.

“Are we?” he pleaded.

Of all the generations, the Baby Boomers are the most fearful, the most likely to deny that we will someday run out of oil.  The thought of no petrol, and not being able to drive, seems to fill them with dread.

Their entire lives, over 60 years, have been fuelled by petrol, with family cars as a constant presence.  They are the first generation who grew up with the assumption they would have a car.  Always.

The Cheverlot looks anthropomorphic - must be a family member

Their intense relationship with their cars is more than a relationship.  Cars give us our sense of self.  That includes a sense of belonging, self-esteem, and status.

In the field of self-esteem, driving skill has become an essential part of our ego.  So many of us think we are great drivers, and we need to believe that.

Many older men fear being told they have to give up driving, ending probably the longest relationship of their lives.

My own father only stopped driving weeks before he died.  He could not even walk to his mail box, due to the emphysema, heart disease, osteoporosis, and the effects of his stroke, but he kept nipping down to the shops.

The dent in the rear of the car, he breezily confessed, was from when he backed into someone at the shops.

From a time when everything was better.  Apparently.

Harder to extract from him was the admittance that he managed to crash into his neighbours’ car.  He reversed out of his garage, across the street and hit the car parked in their driveway.

When he was negotiating his (second) divorce settlement, I insisted he throw in his car to the package, hoping he would now finally cease driving.  He agreed, but as soon as the settlement was paid, he equally insisted on getting a new car.

I sat next to him the first time he drove it, and he wasn’t behind the wheel 60 seconds before he slammed into a speed bump he did not see.  “You can have a drive now,” he said shakily as he quickly pulled over.

My father was deeply convinced of his driving ability, and only death separated him from his car.  Of all his fears when visiting the doctor, his greatest was the doctor telling him he could not drive anymore.

The prospect of “no car” means more than the end of a deep relationship for the ageing Baby Boomers.  It may mean a loss of part of themselves.

The Whitings were a Ford family.  Sorry.

For all generations, cars establish an identity.  While many Australians will scratch their heads when asked what religion they are, many will unhesitatingly place themselves in one of two groups - Holden or Ford.

People become members of a tribe according to car preference.  They identify themselves as tribal men through Holden or Ford clothing.  On the walls of their homes, you can see the posters and artwork blaring Holden or Ford.

For some, this relationship moves beyond a car giving sense of self.  The car gives them an identity.

The grey haired gent wanted to be assured I wasn’t going to take away his petrol and render his car into a dust-gathering ornament.  Like my Dad, that would diminish his manhood.

Fear not, Baby Boomers.  We won’t run out of petrol yet.  There will be just enough to last out your lives.

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How Public Debt Builds The Queensland Economy

THIS WEEK has seen one framework of political rhetoric usurped by another in Queensland.  The conservative refrain of “no spending, no debt” has been swamped by the Labor language of “jobs jobs and jobs”.

Can the shock-horror rhetoric about debt last much longer?   The reality is that heavy debt has always been a feature of the Queensland government, and always will be.

 Developing the State through Debt

Ever since Queensland became Queensland in 1859, politicians of all ideological hues have borrowed heavily.  We’ve had no choice: it is the only way to fund infrastructure development in this decentralised state.

The biggest transport infrastructure project Queensland had for about a hundred years was the colonial railways.  I wrote previously that from 1887 to 1883, the Queensland government splurged on rail, borrowing £7 million to construct 3,000 kilometres of it.

We had the highest per capita debt in the British Empire.  And it wasn’t just railways that made us scrape out the public purse down to its silk lining.

For over a hundred years, Queensland politicians spent up big on ports and maritime infrastructure.  Colonial governments established ports at Gladstone, Bowen, Rockhampton and Mackay.  They set up harbour boards and directed public funds to clear rivers, and to dredge sandbars and mudflats.  

The spending of public money to gouge out shipping channels, raise wharves and build ports was a passion for our early politicians.  After all, most were pastoralists, and their private fortune depended on this public expenditure.

Freudian Analysis Needed For Tunnel Fascination.

The creation of transport infrastructure through public debt was not just a colonial fixation.  In the 21^st century, the railway mania has been replaced by a tunnel obsession.

At Brisbane City Council under Campbell Newman, debt has reached $2.1 billion whilst revenue sits at $2 billion.  Professor John Quiggins points out that is a debt / revenue ratio of over 100%, a rate that Peter Costello said is unacceptable for a state government.

Until recently, few have raised a squeak about the debt burden taken on to build transport infrastructure.  The whole wealth of Queensland is literally dependent on it.  At one stage in the 19^th century, the pastoral industry accounted for 95% of our economy.   Queensland wealth and society hinged on transporting beef and wool out of the state.

Our economy didn’t ride on the sheep’s back – it rode out in the cattle trucks and into the holds of steam ships.  Today it rides down a conveyer belt and into a steel hull.

Paying Off Debt: How We've Always Done It.

Now, that’s a romantic image that works well to explain state debt and our economic history.  But it doesn’t stick in the public psyche like the image of a maxed-out credit card, a much easier grasped picture.

And the question evoked by that image and mental frame is this: how we are going to pay off our loans, Pa?

The answer in real-life economic terms is this: the same way we always have, son.  We exploit our resources and land.  Whenever Queensland has needed more revenue, we have squeezed it out of industry based on our natural resources, and opened up a seemingly endless supply of land for housing and industry.

The mental frame and popular rhetoric of debt as a household problem won’t disappear.  It works too effectively, and conservative politicians know it resonates deeply.

But it may be tempered by a competing narrative of “jobs first”, and maybe even a bit of historic economic reality.

References:

Raymond Evans, "A History of Queensland", Cambridge Press.

J Laverty, "The Queensland Economy 1860-1915" in Murphy, Joyce and Hughes, "Prelude to Power", Jacaranda Press.

http://johnquiggin.com/2012/09/05/a-bit-early-for-monument-building/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Queensland

http://www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/conferences/newcastle/cameron.htm

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