By Timothy Churchill,Staff Writer

PARIS – Well, no, not necessarily sugar and spice and everything nice.

Well before earning their driving privileges, a group of 11 Girl Scouts on Wednesday night eagerly learned a few practical lessons about cars in the grease-stained and paint-smelling automotive classrooms at the technical school within Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

The event was organized by Scout leaders Lori Grenier and Linda Bilier. Bilier contacted Mitch Green, who teaches the technical school’s automotive course, asking if he would let the girls use the garage as a laboratory for learning a thing or two about cars. Green quickly cottoned to the idea.

“When they reach driving age they’ll remember they need to check the tires, they need to check the oil and so forth,” he said.

The technical knowledge was imparted by four of Green’s tech school students, two seniors and two juniors, and it will move the Scouts significantly closer to getting their “car care badges,” one of a variety of badges they can earn to move to the next level in Scouting, Girl Scout Cadettes. The badges will be officially earned next week when the girls pass a quiz on Wednesday’s lessons.

Among other things, the girls, fourth- and sixth-graders at Oxford Elementary School, were taught how to check tire pressure, maintain fluids, use a car’s manual, make sure the lights are working properly, and purchase car parts online.

Bilier said that beyond being “a lot of fun,” the event would have an invaluable and hopefully long-lasting impact on the way the Scouts regard automobiles.

“It will let them know a car is not a toy,” she said. “It’s expensive and it needs to be maintained.”

Tanya Grant, a senior who helped teach the Scouts, relished sharing with them something she herself had an abiding interest in: working on cars. “I like being able to show other people what I learn,” she said.

Fourth-grader Elizabeth Bickford said her favorite lesson was checking the oil. “I like seeing the brown color,” she beamed, adding, “and I like seeing how high up it has to be.”

Fourth-grader Jaimee Grenier said that the lesson that would stick in her mind concerned a car’s owner manual. “There’s a proper way to sit in a car and you always have to have your seat belt on,” she said.

Asked whether she thought there was something ironic about Girl Scouts learning the nitty-gritty of automobiles, Scout leader Lori Grenier chuckled. “It was different for them, but I’m hoping some of them will take it when they get up here.”