Flea Market

The vendors of the Randallstown Flea Market hawked their used computers, cut-rate jewelry and oversize bras for the last time yesterday -- ending a brief run of capitalism at its most chaotic.More than 23,000 people packed the giant, warehouse-style room when the flea market opened on Liberty Road in September 1994. And no wonder -- with 210 tables of merchandise, 140 booths, a buffet and video games.But the crowds steadily dwindled to fewer than a thousand a day. Yesterday, vendors were offering merchandise for half-price or free so they wouldn't have to cart it away to homes or storage areas.

A satin wedding dress, statuettes made from pecan flour paste and polyester resin, herbal cigarettes imported from India, an S-cup bra -- they are all available at the Randallstown Flea Market, which features more than fake plants, cheap clothes and used kitchen goods.The flea market was opened at 8514 Liberty Road to fill a void left when the Edmondson Drive-In flea market closed nearly four years ago. Manager Malcolm M. McKnight said it draws about 1,100 customers each weekend day and celebrates its first anniversary this month.

A flea market is like a high school dance. You go there hoping to fall in love and you do, over and over, always with the same type.This idea dawns on you in time, and you tell yourself to stop ogling, say, Bakelite radios. And then, from a pile of flea market junk, another Bakelite radio begins singing to you like Circe. Buy it and consider yourself a collector.Or don't buy it. Just walk away. But resist the impulse to walk back later. Your own true radio may have run off with another. To console yourself, you may rush to buy another thing, a better thing, you tell yourself.

If you believe that big things can come in small packages, then you won't be disappointed by a jaunt to New Windsor this weekend, when this northwest Carroll community jumps with activity.The Pipe Creek Jaycees sponsor their first flea market from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday on the New Windsor Carnival grounds. More than 40 vendors have reserved tables, including numerous craftsmen."This might be a time to get some early Christmas shopping done," suggests Debbie Weishaar, an organizer of the flea market.

HOLIDAY SHOPPERS have an assortment of buying opportunities tomorrow with three craft fairs and a church flea market scheduled in Pasadena.The Northeast High School Athletic Boosters' fall craft fair is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow at the school, 1121 Duvall Highway.In addition to handcrafted gift and home-decorating items, food, baked goods and refreshments will be available.Proceeds from table rentals and food sales will help support Northeast Eagles athletic teams.Band boosters fairThe Band Boosters at Chesapeake High School will hold its craft fair from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow at the school, 4798 Mountain Road.

Saturday offers a full day of activities. Begin your morning with a flea market, move on to a harvest festival and then cap off the day by attending a Halloween ball that night.An Indoor Flea Market sponsored by the Parent Teachers Association of North County High School begins as early as 8:30 a.m. for those who want to take advantage of a $1 early bird admission. From 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. admission is free.Eighty-five tables will offer a mixture of flea market and craft items for sale. Food will also be available.

Saturday offers a full day of activities. Begin your morning with a flea market, move on to a harvest festival and then cap off the day by attending a Halloween ball that night.An Indoor Flea Market sponsored by the Parent Teachers Association of North County High Schoolbegins as early as 8:30 a.m. for those who want to take advantage ofa $1 early bird admission. From 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. admission is free.Eighty-five tables will offer a mixture of flea market and craft items for sale. Food will also be available.

Shortly after humans began hunting and gathering, they probably began dickering, haggling and hawking what they had hunted and gathered -- at 50, 60 or even 70 percent off.Every weekend when the weather is good, that primal urge to bargain transforms a derelict drive-in movie theater and former roller rink on North Point Boulevard into the modern equivalent of the ancient bazaar.It may not be Marrakesh or Isfahan, but the North Point Arena Flea Market -- one of a half-dozen flea markets in the area -- can draw up to 440 sellers and 6,000 customers on a bustling summer Sunday, backing up traffic along the boulevard for a quarter mile.

ANNAPOLIS AND South County will be filled this weekend with music, galas, flowers, trees and fleas. Flea markets, that is.The Barge House Museum in Eastport will hold a flea market from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. "Take your old stuff, throw it into boxes, bring it to us and get credit for a nice donation to our nonprofit museum," says museum director Peg Wallace. "Then come to the flea market and buy new stuff to fill the empty corners you just cleaned out. If it's raining, we'll do it Sunday, same time and place."

It sounds like another sad story of urban decay: Beautiful new mall opens in an inner-city neighborhood, flops and ends up as a flea market.On the face of it, that's just what has happened at Mount Clare Junction, the $30 million shopping center that opened amid much ballyhoo on West Pratt Street in 1987. While its anchor Safeway store has thrived, within a year of the opening the enclosed mall part of the development had turned into what one disillusioned merchant described as a "morgue."