SUMB THING FOR EVERYONE

From: LEEnCALIF@aol.com
Date: Sat Jul 29 2000 - 13:37:15 PDT


When the neighborhood clean up began early Saturday morning, it seemed like a
really good plan. Cut down some towering palm trees, whack up some
overbearing junipers and haul off a few dozen large pine limbs and get rid of
some dead wood.

When it was all done and the dust had settled, we realized we had gone postal
with this operation. Lesson number 1. Never give the neighborhood guys a
mission to clean up the area and then turn them loose with their toys, like
Al's new "little beaver" chain saw. That thing could slice up a towering
redwood into kindling before you could say...timmmmmmmber! What seemed like
a good idea and perhaps large pick up load suddenly turned ugly, like the
"morning after" reality. The pile of debris had grown and grown till even
the neighborhood kids stood in awe of the large green pyramid that now
towered above them.
  
The neighbors gathered round and tried to look for an easy way to removed it.
 Uh, we could save it for street sweeper, said Al with a dumb grin. Not
likely, said Gary, ever the practical one. We stood there transfixed,
staring at what we had done, while Gary, with all the mathematical skill his
public education could muster, measured and figured and estimated how many
trips it would take to remove the big green mountain from our midst.
Hmmmmm...les see now at $20 a load, not countin fuel and time, uh, bout
$1000. That brought us out of our trance as all heads turned to look at
Gary. Oops, I mean $100! He said, correcting his math.
  
Egads, even at $100 this was unacceptable! Then SUMB thing reminded me of
another option! In 20 minutes time, I was back from my garage/storage place
with a huge rumbling green monster .... ta-daaaaa! The green and black camo
painted SUMB rolled in like Calvary to rescue, once again saving the middle
class from serious manual labor and excessive fees.

We loaded the SUMB, then packed it all down, and did it again twice more.
Until it was packed it down tight and we could not cram one more twig on it.
Then I covered it all with camo netting. It really looked great too. The
entire green mountain was transferred to the back of the SUMB!

The neighbor guys were totally impressed and everyone had to take a turn
sitting in the cab, as high as most 18 wheelers on the road. The hefty SUMB
springs were not even sagging either! And once underway, you wouldn't have
even known there was a load in the back, if it were not for the palm leaves
hanging over the front of the cab. This was not even a fair contest for the
battle tested SUMB with it's massive 20 inch wheels and heavy, 4X4 drive
train. Every area of a SUMB that remotely deals with the transmission of
power is reinforced with heavy steel hangers, brackets, traction bars, sway
bars or steel reinforced rubber mounts. It loudly bespeaks of engineering
designed to deal with whatever abuse an 18 year army grunt could subject it
too.

We were an unusual sight as we rumbled up the dirty road to the disposal
yard. So unusual, that the guys in the weigh shed were drawn out just to
look us over. Turns out, the main guy there was a MOG fan and he thought
the SUMB was a form of MOG, his favorite 4X4 vehicle. Although he had never
seen a MOG outside his magazines, he was nevertheless, totally impressed with
this version. So I let him go on about MOGS as he looked over the SUMB. I
never had the heart to tell him it was not a MOG, but the improved French
version of a MOG (hehehe)!

Wow, you can darn near drive a sports car under it between axles, the amazed
scale attendant said as he walked around it. A few more wows later and a
mere $8 fee (a 1/2 truck fee) we were in and gone.

You might say our Saturday turned out to be SUMB fun.

Jack Lee
Ferret Mk 2/3
SUMB w/trailer

PS If you newer members have never seen a French SUMB, I have pictures or
better yet, come to Woodson's Bridge this year.



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