My job requires that I spend a lot of time in my car driving. When you drive a lot, you get to see a lot of interesting and sometimes amazing things.
I saw it for the first time during the holidays last year by the mall. I was on my way home from work stopped at a light and I took a photo, but it was at night and with my cell phone, so it wasn’t great.
Then two weeks ago, I saw its little brother heading west on Rt. 46 when I was going east. Then I saw the small one again this week on Rt. 3. So I reached out to Salomone Brothers Inc. of Wayne. The company provides Redi-Mix concrete services to residential and commercial customers in northern New Jersey. I asked if I would be able to stop by their lot to photograph the cement trucks before they hit the road for the evening. The response was “absolutely”! The guys were excited to tell the story of how they decorate the trucks each year and how they go out driving them.
For the last two years, the owners have dedicated two of their concrete mixing and delivery vehicles to brightening the holiday season for the residents of northern New Jersey. The two vehicles (large and small) are decorated front to back, top to bottom, wheels and barrel with 37,000 Christmas lights. Speakers blast out holiday songs and bring holiday cheer to all who are fortunate enough to see them live.
It takes 10 days to decorate the larger of the two cement trucks and seven days for its little brother to be tricked out. Each truck goes out in the evening at 5 p.m. and tours our local roadways.
The Salomone guys are also electricians and once they figured out how to get the lights on the barrel to rotate without getting tangled, it was easy to get power to them. To make sure the lights can be mounted easily, they use vehicles that have new clean paint so the lights can be stuck on. A Honda generator strapped to the big mixer powers the lights and music system.
The best part is that the lights on the barrel work while it’s rotating.
Yeah, it’s really cool.
Happy Holidays!
All photos copyright Fred Goode, GoodeImages. Used by permission.
