On the Loading Dock - Summers of 1979 and 1980

Cable Car Eyewear.  This would be my parent's company.  Actually, my grandparent's company.  It was founded by my grandfather in 1954 under the name Sunglass Products of California.

In the 1960's he had a partner, in the 1970's they split the company up over a disagreement.  Part of the split up was that both companies could continue to operate with the name Sunglass Products.  So the name of my grandfather's half was changed to Cable Car Sunglasses to both avoid confusion and to emphasize our Northern California location. (And, no doubt, to leverage some of the San Francisco tourist trade.)

The other half, which my grandfather's partner retained, is still called Sunglass Products Inc. and is still down in Fullerton, California. Oddly enough, it is on "Williamson Ave." in Fullerton, which is very close to our family last name. (In fact, is was our family last name until my great-grandfather got hold of it, but that is another story.)

What the company did/does is import sunglasses and reading glasses from low price over-seas producers in places like Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Italy, and Spain, (and Japan and Germany in the early days, when they were cheap labor markets as well) ship them to the US, tag them, put them on display racks, and sell them through stores like Long's Drugs and such in the Western United States.

Among other things, the company owned the rights to the name Dr. Dean Edell for eyewear products.  When reading glasses became big, they change the company name to Cable Car Eyewear.  The web site claims that in 1989 they gained the endorsement of Dr. Dean Edell.  Actually, my uncle paid money for the rights to that endorsement from a third party, or so I was told.  Not exactly the same thing.

What I did there was work in shipping and receiving, load and unloading trucks, unpacking boxes, packing boxes, labeling boxes, and all sorts of grunt work, all for $3.00 an hour!  Good money for a 13 year old on a summer job back then.

In 1997 my father and uncle sold the company to the current owner.  

The company has since changed its name to "Zoom Eyeworks."