Three Kinds of Jello Salad

My Uncle Homer, my dad's sister Bonnie's husband, turned 60 this week. So on Saturday we all gathered down at the local grange for a Nordhagen-style birthday party. There were three kinds of Jello Salad: Pink Fluff, Green Stuff, and Yellow Jellow. The Pink Stuff was apparently supposed to be strawberry flavored, judging from the strawberries that garnished it. But given that strawberry season ended in July and these had to be imported from South America or even California, the strawberries were kind of greenish-pinkish-white. The Green Stuff had no particular flavor of its own, though perhaps green jello is supposed to taste like lime? I think it had crushed pineapple in it, and I couldn't really tell what else. Then, in a whole different category altogether, was Grandma's Yellow Jellow. I have just named it that, since it doesn't really have a name. This jello salad is the platonic form of jello salads. It is half side dish, half dessert. The side dish part comes from the cheese. Grated cheese. Sometimes it is cheddar, sometimes it is Velveeta. In that case of course, it isn't Really cheese. The point is, when you take cheese-flavored stuff, lemon jello, and crushed pineapple, you have something Really Worth Eating.

I'll try to post a picture of the grange soon. The Inland Grange, Elk, Washington. To get there, start at our house in Chattaroy. Go down to Chattaroy Road, and go East. Then get on Elk-Chattaroy Rd. Don't turn off to go to the farm. Keep going, and go some more, and then turn right, toward Idaho. Keep going until you are almost in Idaho. Turn on Conklin Rd. There you are. The Grange. Now, just to be clear, I want you to know that this is the first time I have ever attended any event in a Grange Hall. I am not as much of a hick as you think. Except perhaps to those of you who don't even know what a Grange Hall is. To you, I am country through-and-through.

The only complication I experienced in attending my uncle's birthday party at the grange was this line, along with its enduring melody, stuck in my head for the last week: "Homer, out at the Grange... where the deer and the moose and elk roam...." (we have no Buffalo here) "Where seldom is heard, a discouraging word... and the skies are not cloudy all day."