On Thursday morning, I got a call from Ozzie Sweet saying that he wanted to
photograph my '48 M5 truck for an all-truck calendar for 2007.  I had spoken
with him on the phone before and had sent him a picture of my truck.  Ozzie
has been a photographer for a long time - he's 87 now.   He's been a
freelance photographer for over 60 years, made his mark shooting sports
shots for Sport magazine, Sports Illustrated, and many others like Newsweek,
Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, etc.  Just put his name into Google to see
what I mean.  So, when Ozzie said, "Drive your truck to Maine and I'll shoot
it", I cleared the decks in a hurry.  My wife and I left our house in
southeastern Mass. at 6:30 am this morning (Friday, 10/28/05) and drove to
his house in York Harbor, Maine, about 125 miles away.  Of course, this
meant driving through downtown Boston at morning commute hour and coming
back the same way in the evening.

We got there in good time, and Ozzie took a bunch of shots in some great
locations.  At his house, we saw some of his photos of Mickey Mantle, Joe
DiMaggio, Ted Williams - and some Playboy Playmates.  Ozzie said that he
started shooting Mickey Mantle when Mickey was a rookie at 19 and shot
pictures every year of his baseball career.  There's a book due out soon
with 300 of these Mantle photos.  Ozzie also said he had shot a bunch of
advertising photos for Studebaker and Mercedes in the early '50s when
Studebaker was the distributor for Mercedes.  He said he would be willing to
dig out a color photo of a Studebaker from those days to use on a Turning
Wheels cover.  I'd love to arrange this, if Ozzie comes up with a
transparency and the TW people can arrange it.  A gentleman as fine as Ozzie
is hard to find.

He isn't a digital guy, still into real Ektachrome 100 film and a 4x5 view
camera.  Here's Ozzie shooting the truck on a wonderful New England fall
day:
http://www.studegarage.com/images/ozzie_shooting1.jpg

Anyway, we had a great morning shooting pictures and just talking.  I hope I
can be alive at 87, let alone be out making a living and shooting great
pictures.  On the other hand, I can tell you that driving an M5 more than
250 miles in a single day take took a lot of energy out of ME!  On the way
back, we got stuck in awful traffic on I-93 through Boston.  The "Big Dig",
what the rest of you are paying more than $15 billion in taxes for, has not
cured rush hour jams.  About 40 minutes into 1st gear stop-and-creep, the
engine stalled from overheating right in the middle of the big tunnel
through Boston.   The stall business has happened to me before.  The engine
just needs about 1/2 hour to cool off and it will start again.  However, in
about 3 minutes, a State Police car appeared - they watched everything on TV
cameras in the tunnel, had even run my plate number through the computer.
The very polite officer informed me that his car was going to push my M5 out
of the tunnel.  I started to protest that the bumper wasn't designed for
this, but he smiled at me and said I had no choice.  He was very careful,
pushed me to a less dangerous place, and a state flat bed truck soon hauled
me out of the tunnel (no charge).  When they dropped us off at the Boston
barracks of the state police, the M5 engine started right up.  I turned it
off again, and my wife and I walked to a nearby hotel for a drink.  We
returned an hour later when the engine was completely cool and traffic
subsided - a little - and then drove the last 50 miles to home.  In spite of
the minor problem, it was a great day, a grand adventure, and we got to meet
a really neat guy.  I got some great pictures by just standing behind him.

Maybe late next year, your local garage will have a truck calendar with the
red M5 in it.  If it says, "Photos by Ozzie Sweet", be sure to get several.