By Scott Shephard

I got my first car when I was in high school. It was a 1949 pale green Plymouth and it cost $200. His name was Oslee, given to it by my brother’s friend, Laurie. Oslee had no seatbelts, a three speed transmission and a 6 cylinder engine. The radio was massive and had vacuum tubes that glowed. Sometimes when it quit working, I would just give it a wack and it would play. AM, of course.

Oslee certainly had charm and character, and I believe that no one drove an older car in all of Lincoln High School in 1972. And I was still driving Oslee when Deb and I moved to Watertown in 1979. Eventually, I sold it to Doc Stavic, a Watertown High School science teacher. The price: $200. And he eventually traded it to an out-of-state salesman for some cattle gates for Doc’s small farm. I was very fond of that car and wonder from time to time if he had a good life after he left South Dakota.

Oslee had his feet firmly planted in the middle of the 20th century. But, truth be told, all internal combustion engine (ICE) automobiles like Oslee, are 19th century machines since that’s when that the ICE was invented.

The car in this photo, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, is certainly a relative of Oslee. It has 4 wheels, 4 doors (but no handles?), and a steering wheel. It has a radio, too. But who listens to car radios any more? We don’t normally name our cars but this one is named Benjamin, after Ben Franklin, who was curious about electricity and ways to store it. In fact, it was Franklin who introduced the word “battery” as a method of storing something he knew had power. Our car Benjamin has a very big battery.

Do you wonder about the viability of an electric car? The practicality? So did I. But so far, I’m a big fan. Do you want a ride? Let me know.

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