Old Things Considered: Summer Camp, Anyone?

I suppose I’m showing my age, but when I was little, the only people I knew who went to camp were the identical twins in The Parent Trap. (Note: I’m talking about the original version of the movie, the one with Hayley Mills.) Aside from one summer when I hung out at a Baltimore Country rec department summer program at what was then Johnnycake Elementary School, I spent my days hanging out with Mom, reading, learning to cook and sew, and of course, shopping.

Later on, when I wanted a summer job, I spent two summers as an arts and crafts counselor at Camp Willow Wood, in the old cape cod house that was the headquarters for the Howard County YMCA some years back. Those two years were very instructive for me, as it was then that I became convinced that I was not cut out to be a teacher.

Anyway, these days, everybody goes to camp. And our dear little granddaughter (want to see some pictures?) is no exception. At the ripe old age of five, she is already a veteran of dance camp, which was pretty cool, I suppose. This week, however, she’s headed out to pirate camp, arrgh, where that little matey will mix it up with the other kids and learn how to eat lunch at school, all preparatory for kindergarten in the fall.

Doesn’t get much better than that.

Driving around the greater metropolis of Catonsville and beyond the other day, I saw a number of “space available” and “applications still accepted” signs for all manner of camps, and if I were to tell you what some of them were, you’d never believe me. Trust me. However, I’m not going to go into details what passes for camp these days, because it’s too hot to have to deal with angry letters and comments.

That said, though, I do have a modest proposal: antiques camp.

I can see it now. I would be the director – only fair, because this is my idea. We’d have various seminars during the daytime, led by experts in the field. We’d talk about glass and ceramics, furniture and silver. The impact of the Internet on brick-and-mortar shops would be hotly debated. Lectures would be supplemented with videos (the British version of Roadshow would be most instructive), and we’d take field trips. Ah, the field trips. We’d tromp through the long aisles of our favorite hunting grounds, looking for treasures. Each camper would be armed with a hand lens and a tape measure, essential tools in every collector’s arsenal. We’d learn how to discern the real McCoy from fakes, and we’d discuss the finer points of politely asking for a better price without driving the dealer into a frenzy.

At the end of the day, we’d compare notes, seeing who got the best deal. And for a closing ceremony, we’d host a flea market.

Okay, so I probably couldn’t talk many little kids into wanting to do this. And for that matter, I might be hard-pressed to get a lot of adults to enroll. But people who have been collecting for years are always trying to figure out how to appeal to the next generation: no one wants the items they’ve spent a lifetime of gathering to end up at the side of the curb.

Just a suggestion.