I just turned 43 so coming of age in the late 80's through the 90's meant I was growing up through the Oakley Golden Era. I grew up in a place in Northern California called Lake County that has at it's center Clear Lake which is California's largest natural lake as Tahoe is larger but technically isn't California's largest natural lake because part of it lies within Nevada. Couldn't be more different socio economically either given Tahoe was then as it remains now among the highest in median income as well as most sought after place (number 1 in Zillow home searches in 2021) in the United States whereas Lake County then as now you practically can't give away land and it remains among the poorest counties if not just in California but also possibly the entire United States and in a now legendary major magazine article in the 90's was referred to as "the Appalachia of the West". Stick with me, this is all comes together here shortly.
Anyway, so against that backdrop Clear Lake being a large lake, the climate being in the 90s to 100s pretty much May through September, Lake County being within a couple hours drive of the Bay Area, Marin etc. and being relatively affordable (and closer) vs. a place like Tahoe, increasingly throughout the Oakley Golden Era relatively affluent people (to me at the time they seemed "rich" though now I realize many were perhaps at the most maybe upper middle class) from the Bay Area and elsewhere would come to vacation there in the summer and even buy second homes.
We had seaplane fly ins, boat races, Howard Arneson would bring his flame shooting jet boats up from Marin (just Google Howard Arneson boat....you'll see what I'm talking about), people would bring up their ski boats, Sea Doo was coming on strong, people were towing this stuff around with big shiny trucks that had Body Glove decals on them......and Icons....and "Thermonuclear Protection" (that still sounds dope AF even today).
AND all these people needed sunglasses during what we now know as the Golden Era of Oakley. So me being a dirt floor poor kid living on public assistance and food stamps while being raised by a single mom spent many a summer day down at Library Park swimming and cannonballing off the pier (cause that was free fun....the only fun we could afford). I remember seeing these tourists and second home residents- and millionaires like Arneson- putting their boats in the water at the various boat ramps round the lake, cruising by on jet skis, renting parasailing rides at On the Waterfront, etc.......and a great many of them were wearing badass sunglasses made by Oakley. In many regards, you are as a kid who you'll become as an adult (some research suggests your primary core personality is locked in by 5 and I can attest to agreeing with that having taken part in raising several kids of my own, biological and nonbiological) and even then I liked accessories and not just any accessory but bold ones: big watches, stylish or just outright loud shoes, even the likes of diamond rings for guys.......and Oakley especially in that era? Fit smack dab right into that framework of tastes.
I remember my whole childhood I wanted one pair of cool Oakley's or another sooooooo bad. But I also knew there was zero chance I'd be able to own a pair at least not as a kid. Well.....I mean...I don't know that I was specifically conscious of the fact that we'd never climb out of poverty but especially by the time you're a teenager and this has been just the way it is your whole life and you become aware that's driven in substantial part by your only active parents mental illness which isn't going to improve I think you "know". I can tell you this much....by my late teens the insatiable drive to get out and make something of myself was in full effect. And while I also know that said drive was at it's core about accomplishment- academically, professionally, personally- of course in the mix was the feeling that, yeah....maybe at some point I'll be able to feed my tastes in things.....clothes, food, cars and accessories- including but probably leading with Oakley.
And in fact.....now that I think about it.....I'm not so sure there's not chicken or the egg in play here. It's a distinct possibility that I cannot separate and determine if my daring, bold, in your face tastes (which has Oakley as a cornerstone) is a natural part of my development within which Oakley happened to fit.......or if Oakley was the (or at the very least a) primary force in shaping my overall style and taste. Which in turn would mean that to a certain degree.....Oakley was ingrained in what has driven me to work so hard to succeed the last 25 years.
Relatedly, I find myself feeling something of a kinship with Jim Jannard. Now I don't know Mr. Jannard, never met him, never spoken to him directly.....but I have seen him interact with us here at the forum, I've read stories about people crossing paths with him and heard stories of those who have worked with him. And in all that....all I've seen and heard is a person who is insanely smart, infinitely creative, not afraid to push the limits, not afriad to be bold and clearly driven when it comes to what he's passionate about.....but perhaps more importantly- someone who no matter the success? Is still a down to Earth, humble and, by all accounts and from what I've seen simply put....kind and cool dude.
Those are all traits I admire in a person and traits that, as I've made my way in live and achieved my relative level of success in life, I like to think I've retained as well.... especially that of not having an overblown ego and being kind and considerate to your fellow human beings.
Now of course growing up I didn't know all this, I just developed a liking for some cool sunglasses. But merely liking a product doesn't drive me personally- especially when the product is a discretionary non-need- to purchase more than one of something, doesn't drive me to collect something, doesn't drive me to spend time and money hunting for something, etc. No, for me to do that there has to be more there- something more intrinsic driving it.
Which if one now looks at my life to this point in it's totality and combines that with how Oakley fit into that especially for me as a child which then dovetailed with what I came to know about the person that was its founder and primary visionary, then the answer to the question why/how did I get addicted to (or as I probably prefer to say, passionate about) Oakley?
Well that's now easy to answer - it's a part of me....Oakley is literally a part of who I am.
To that very point I'm thinking right now about something my (now 14 year old) son asked me sometime over the last few years: if you were having to sell off all the accessories you didn't HAVE to have-- the dozens of pairs of Nike and Jordan shoes, the dozens of Invicta watches, the dozens of colognes....the dozens of Oakley sunglasses --- which would try and keep, which would you sell last. The answer was immediate and unequivocal: Oakley.....and it's not even close. Even though of all those things Oakley is the most valuable.....I'd have to be damn near destitute before I'll part with my Oakley collection, especially certain pieces.
Even now that's becoming very true- I don't have to sell anything, but I have decided to pare down, simplify and to certain extent retool my wardrobe/accessories. But not Oakley....not that. Even though I now live in a place where it rains 100 inches a year, I don't commute 2 hours a day in sunny California anymore, 6 months out of the year you really don't need sunglasses and the other 6 months those sunglasses get put on top of the head quite a bit due to variable conditions making having dozens of pairs of sunglasses more impractical than ever before......the Oakley's are untouched aside from a few pieces I threw up in the Exchange to make a bit of room for new.
Because for me when it comes to Oakley and my collection, it's about more than just sunglasses or a product.....Oakley is part of who I am as a person and part of the fabric of my life. When I moved from Sacramento to Oceanside (700 miles) the boxes marked "Oakley- FRAGILE-Load Last in Cab Only" were, along with my son, the only things that traveled in the U-Haul cab.
So yeah.......that's the why/how for me....and it's long and probably cheesy but it's the total truth.
And so tomorrow like every day I leave the house and head to the beach I'll have with me the same four things I never leave the house without because they're that important to me for one reason or another: wallet, phone, gun, wedding ring.....and a pair of Oakley's.
