The sign at the corner of Valley and Garfield in Alhambra (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
I was delighted to learn this morning that The Hat has expanded beyond its cradle in the San Gabriel Valley. The Hat was founded in 1951, with its first location at the corner of Garfield Avenue and Valley Boulevard in Alhambra. That was the very place that I grew up going to — it’s still there and its appearance hasn’t changed much — and old photos of the original location are, as far as I can tell, displayed in all of the chain’s current restaurants.
I’ve never eaten anything at any iteration of The Hat other than its incredible pastrami dip sandwich. (Why forsake perfection for a risky experiment with something that cannot possibly be better?) And, on occasion, I supplemented the sandwich with The Hat’s onion rings, which are quite good. (However, I should warn you that, at least as of the last time that I tried the location in Temple City, their “small” order of onion rings seems to have weighed in at around fifty pounds, a quantity that no group of humans below battalion strength could ever really hope to master.). The pastrami dip is to die for. (My wife would say “literally so.”)
Anyway, I saw a billboard along I-15 announcing a location in Rancho Cucamonga and recognized it as one final opportunity for me to wallow in a native Southern Californian’s nostalgia. I had enjoyed a traditional date shake while looking over Crystal Cove from the Shake Shack that sits there beside the Pacific Coast Highway. And, last night, I had introduced one of my granddaughters to music by The Beach Boys and to Jan and Dean’s “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena.” (Colorado Boulevard was a familiar haunt of my youth.) Otherwise, though, we didn’t get up from Newport Beach to San Gabriel, we didn’t visit my parents’ graves at Rose Hills in Whittier or my brother’s and my sister-in-law’s graves in the San Gabriel Cemetery, part of our family was ultimately unable to make the trip from the Northeast and from Virginia out to California , and the son who was with us came down with a serious cold that eventually obliged us to warn my remaining Southern California nephew against driving down with his wife and children to spend a day with us. Horrible person though I’m claimed to be, even I didn’t like the thought of ruining their Christmas.
So that last minute visit to The Hat in Cucamonga was a pleasant surprise before heading up over Cajon Pass. On which, incidentally, a note from Wikipedia:
In 1851, a group of Mormon settlers led by Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich traveled through Cajon Pass in covered wagons on their way from Salt Lake City to southern California. A prominent rock formation in the pass, where the Mormon Road and the railway merge (at 34.3184°N 117.4920°W, near Sullivan’s Curve), is known as Mormon Rocks.
In Spanish, the word cajón refers to a box or drawer. The name of the pass is derived from the Spanish land grant encompassing the area; it was first referred to in English on an 1852 map. Early Latter-day Saint documents, which often referred to the pass as “Cahoon Pass”, suggest an alternate explanation for the name, that it is named in honor of Mormon pioneer Andrew Cahoon (pronounced similarly to Cajon), who was an early settler in nearby San Bernardino and assisted in surveying and laying out the city of San Bernardino.
And now, continuing in my nostalgic vein, I return to a German Christmas carol for today’s piece of Christmas music. In this case, my nostalgia isn’t exactly for das Vaterland but for nearby German-speaking Switzerland and Austria (and, for similar reasons, for Bavaria). So I offer up a rendition of a nineteenth-century German Christmas carol that has happy memories for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB-VchYuOjs. I also offer the German lyrics and a translation (by me) into English:
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, kling, Glöckchen, kling! Laßt mich ein, ihr Kinder, ist so kalt der Winter, öffnet mir die Türen, lasst mich nicht erfrieren! Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, Kling, Glöckchen, kling! Mädchen, hört, und Bübchen, macht mir auf das Stübchen, bring euch viele Gaben, sollt euch dran erlaben. Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, kling, Glöckchen, kling! Hell erglühn die Kerzen, öffnet mir die Herzen! Will drin wohnen fröhlich, frommes Kind, wie selig. Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling, kling, Glöckchen, kling!
Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring! Let me in, you kids, So cold is the winter, Open the doors for me, Don’t let me freeze! Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring!
Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring! Girls, listen, and boys, Open up the room for me, I bring you many gifts, You should enjoy them! Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring!
Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring! Brightly glow the candles, Open your hearts to me! I want to live there happily, Devout child, how blessed! Ring, little bells, ringalingaling, Ring, little bells, ring!
This is the official movie poster for the Interpreter Foundation’s 2024 dramatic film “Six Days in August.”
I’m pleased to announce that the Interpreter Foundation’s 2024 dramatic film, Six Days in August, is now available on DVD and Blu-ray through Deseret Book. I’m told that it’s physically available in some Deseret Book stores (and perhaps in some retail affiliates of Deseret Book), but probably not in all. However, it is also available online via https://www.deseretbook.com/product/6078120.html — and if you don’t wait unduly long, there is apparently still time to have it arrive in time for Christmas. And need I say that Six Days in August would make an excellent Christmas gift? Well, it would.
For the 8 December 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, the hosts were Bruce Webster, Mark Johnson, and Kevin Christensen and they discussed Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants lesson 1, the new versions of Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the validity of the Book of Mormon.
The program was recorded. It was then edited to remove commercial breaks and it has now been made available for your listening pleasure at absolutely no charge.
The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings, every single week of the year, from 7 to 9 PM (MDT) on K-TALK, AM 1640. Or, if you have access to a computer — and (come on!) how are you managing to read this if you don’t? — you can listen to it live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
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