The C&C Construction Company had built a hunting lodge on a chain of lakes in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, south of Negaunee and Ishpeming and in as much as R.F. Clifton, the owner of our company, was one of the C’s of the C&C Construction Company, we were allowed to use the facilities once in a while.

During the time that we were building the Overhead Electrical Distribution System on the Sawyer Air Force Base, which was only 10 or 12 miles away from the C&C Camp, we had many occasions to entertain customers, as well as supervise the Air Base work without ever leaving camp.

As happens in any hunting camp, many strange things took place there. The owners kept an old Jeep in the little town of Swanzee, to be used to help get cars and people to and from camp, in the winter time. On one occasion we went to get the Jeep and the starter wouldn’t even attempt to turn the engine over. It was cold and we didn’t try to find out what was wrong with it. We just got behind it, with our car and gave it a push and it started. We drove the car and the Jeep out to camp and later that day, when we tried to start it again, it still would not turn over. We then initiated an investigation and found that it didn’t have a battery in it. Someone had taken it out to keep it from freezing.

Two or three of us, more knowledgeable, Electrical Engineers, spent all of that evening trying to figure out how a Jeep could be operated without a battery. Our final conclusion, after several glasses of “Iced Tea” and much discussion, was that a Jeep could not, under any circumstances, run without a battery.