Now THAT’S how you put up a Christmas tree, Will Barnes said with a grin.
And in this particular case, “up” means w-a-a-a-y up.
While it’s pretty much a standard living-room sized tree, the 7-foot evergreen is the most visible Christmas display in Salmon Creek.
That’s because of its position on top of a 130-foot construction crane.
The crane is parked in DeWitt Construction’s equipment yard, just west of Interstate 5 and north of Northeast 134th Street.
When workers decided to cheer things up a bit for the holidays, the big crane looked like a good place to start, said Joe Ploium, shop superintendent.
One person suggested that Ploium buy some lights to decorate the crane boom.
Ploium responded: “How about a tree and lights?”
Ploium picked them up Tuesday at a home-improvement store, and then, “we laid the boom down,” he said.
Rick Smith and Denver Morrise worked to get the tree mounted on the end of the crane boom, strung lights on it, then hoisted the boom.
They had the tree lit up for people driving home from work Tuesday night.
They did a little more work Wednesday afternoon, adding a star. This was not one of those daddy-standing-on-a-chair exercises in topping the Christmas tree.
It meant lowering the crane boom to the ground, and welding the 6-foot, star-shaped metal framework to a steel support.
Then Morrise hoisted the boom back up with its augmented display that was almost 145 feet tall.
“You can see it from the freeway,” Ploium said.
From a distance, the tree looks like it’s floating in midair, one of the guys said.
There’s another element of this project that’s beyond the usual scale: the extension cord that keeps the lights going.
Unlike suburban rooftop decorators, the DeWitt crew didn’t have to plug together a bunch of 20-footers to reach the top. It’s just one extension cord.
In most cases, DeWitt’s construction crews are not working next to an electrical socket, Ploium said, and the company gets custom-made extension cords. “They make them as long as we want.”
