Jim Chapman

Ah, I can still smell them. Vacation Bible School refreshments, Kool-Aid and sugar cookies. They are burnished into my memory with a Popsicle stick across four decades.

Back then, I latched onto this refreshment break because they'd thoroughly worked me over with a goodness stick beforehand. I was brimming over with goodwill by the time I hit the door.

So naturally, at break time, I felt the need to get out and debauch myself in some way to reach a natural balance. Maybe throw a rock, light a firecracker or draw a quick demon on the board. (It's the same instinct that makes a dog wallow in a pile after you give him a bath).

To this day, the smell of Kool-Aid, or anything like it, makes me flash back to those long summer evenings, rattling church air conditioners and the fine dust cloud raised by horseshoes.

But even stronger is the memory of those who led the classes. God must've given them more patience than most mortals, and I'd like to send a belated thanks to them. I didn't realize until much later they didn't get paid for dealing with us. I hope none of them ended up giggling in a padded cell.

Today, across the nation, folks are gearing up for this annual rite of Bible School, squirreling away paper glue, glitter and other items to make small nightly treasures between lessons.

And where do these treasures end up?

A thousand years from now, an archeologist might date our culture to a specific period based on what sort of knickknacks were made.

"Definitely Late Noodle Period," says our archeologist, studying the glittery necklace made from pasta products and yarn. This Late Noodle Era, if you will, is roughly the same time period as the Decoupage Era.

My sister Abby and I dove into decoupage. Our translation of "decoupage" was roughly "beat the devil out of it and then shellac it."

You could decoupage anything, we learned. Glue a magazine picture of a fat man in a bathtub to a plank and whip it with a lamp cord. Then varnish it and nail a pop-top on back to hang it with. "Wall-ah," we'd say when showing it around.

Paintings crafted with dried beans were a biggie. You can make a clown or a rooster come alive with a bean picture. I hadn't seen one in a long stretch, but Sybil Hall recently saw one that hinted at a renaissance in bean painting. She was amazed at its beauty and balance.

This leads me to believe the glory days of bean painting may well lie ahead of us.

I called Gwen Gunter, a longtime teacher, to see what was red hot this year. Birdhouses made of clay pots and tin cans are sizzling, as well as crafty picture frames for digital portraits.

Decoupage is not "back," but let's keep the door open on that. Everything comes back.

Which leads me to the point of this rambling: Bible School crafts are fun and their fine memories stick with us all our lives, but they don't necessarily match the sofa 40 years later.

And yet, ironically, we come to see "beating the devil out of it" was exactly what teachers were trying to do for us, spiritually speaking.

He was just harder to beat out in some cases.

Jim Chapman is a syndicated columnist based in Gainesville. E-mail: jim@vardeman.com.

Originally published Sunday, May 21, 2006