Shelley Fabares

Have you ever heard of a Fantasy Camp? It's when you pay some folks a whole bunch of money to be a real pro at doing something that you love. Except you are an amateur. I think the classic example is the race car driver thing. They give you ground school. Suit you up. Put you in a real car on a real track. I have to admit that that would be a gas. "Is that your crash helmet"? "Oh I hope not". Then of course aviation wise, you can pay to be in a dog fight world war two style. Sort of. I have a buddy who used to work doing that. You have two piston powered T-34's. Each plane has a pilot and a customer. They dog fight and the customer gets some training and they stage a dog fight. Unfortunately, they tore the wings off of a few T-34's and the FAA grounded those operations. My buddy in the business told me it was no fault of the venerable T-34 Mentor. Maybe the classic is the baseball fantasy camp. You get to play with the old retired players who are quite famous. Actually, every tandem parachute jump is a mini Fantasy Camp. After all, you're jumping just like a pro on your first and only jump. Long free- fall and everything. I had a kind of home-made Fantasy Camp experience. It was maybe three or four years ago. A pretty autumn day. There was this music concert being held at a private farm. The band was one of the best groups in the Baltimore-DC area. It was actually a combination of two bands that were combining for a tour through Tennessee and Texas. They were raising money for that tour. The price at the "gate" was whatever you wanted to contribute. Minimum $5. This was a wonderful party. Anyway, my friend Clark and myself were definitely going. And inspired by the "contribution" aspect I was hatching a plan. As Clark and I drove from the shore to Western Maryland I insisted that we play the Bob Dylan song "Love Minus Zero" over and over and nothing else. Clark thought it strange that I had my harmonica rack and one harmonica in my hand the whole time. He kept asking me what was going on but I wouldn't tell him, because maybe nothing was going on. We get to the concert. The opening band is playing and they are wonderful. My good friend Malcolm is there and he knows the guys in the featured band. I know one of the guys "Billy" who is kind of famous. I tell Malcolm I have a crazy idea. I'll pay $100 at the gate if they will let me be front man and sing a song with them. They want to raise money right? Malcolm says "wait here". I go and get a beer, and they havn't said yes yet and I'm nervous as hell. Then "Billy" Kemp himself appears. "Lloyd, what's this all about? You wanna do a song for $100." I say "Yes, and I want you to hand me your Martin D-45 in regular tuning so I can just play at the front mike and be all set up. I know nothing about stage equipment. Also, I have no rhythm, so the band will have to follow me." He says "What song?". I knew he was game. So I got to play with some really great pros. I did my harmonica break, they did a lead break, and I got to play Billy's guitar. On a real stage. Here I thought I had invented the folksinger fantasy camp. But no. It turns out the "Kingston Trio" were going around with two of the original players. The other guy had died. So they were selling a Fantasy slot and the buyer could be the third guy in the trio for a once in a lifetime song. I saw it on YouTube. If I never do anything more as a folk singer, I'm happy. I had my Fantasy Camp. Gen. Av. Informal.