They were called wires. And it made a lot of sense because, honestly, they were made out of wire.  Two circle lenses. Green in colour. They looked so cool.

So cool.

So I asked my mother, who was shopping in a downtown North Battleford, Saskatchewan store called Kresge’s, a department store eventually sold to K-Mart, and asked her to hand them to me.

There they were: my first pair of sunglasses, at age 13. We drove back to our cabin, just north of town, and with these cool new pair of shades – they looked like eyewear sported by Beatle John Lennon – my summer officially started. I wore them. All the time … twice on Sunday. In fact, I wore them so much that the little right wire on the right broke. So, the topic of the small town where my father was born and raised was no longer Cam’s new sunglasses. It morphed into, “What a great tape job on Cam’s glasses.”

Thanks, Dad.

Browsing the internet for the origin of sunglasses and when they started being cool – all sunglasses are cool, right? – are different, depending on where your cursor takes you. One website says a type of sunglasses was around in the 13th century: the Inuit first made and then wore a type of snow goggle made of flattened walrus or caribou ivory with narrow slits to block sunlight. After that, sunglasses entered the pop culture sphere in 1835 when a standard form was made for the United States Army Corps, which made their way to the Air Force. Hark! What would the 1986 blockbuster movie Top Gun be without the sunglasses on all its characters?

Sunglasses. They are an essential piece of Canadian summer. Their protection, of course, is to block bright sun rays.

As heatwaves crisscross the nation with scorching temperatures sunglasses are an essential part of our summer wardrobe. They help keep us cool, certainly.

We want to share the brightness and privilege of helping – families whose children require organ transplants. We’ve even come out with a special line of sunglasses to help our collective view to see the wonderful pictures of the kids the DFF has helped. There’s no better time than the summer for getting great pictures of kids having fun. I know from my own great experiences of my summers at Saskatchewan’s Jackfish Lake: campfires, countless picnics, family weddings, riding farm equipment, doing things we knew we shouldn’t have but they seemed like such a darn good idea at the time and so many more other activities.

For children who may have had a few extra challenges to get to where they are, every swim stroke, caught baseball, bike ride, slide down the baddest slide, waterski attempt, birthday parties, and more is a major accomplishment. They need to be celebrated. But their feats are so bright we need to make sure we can see everything.

A word of advice: be careful of wired framed sunglasses. I hear they can break. And you don’t want to miss anything.