Renaissance Man : Antelope Valley’s Col. Melvin Baker a Whirlwind of Ideas and Opinions

The Colonel moves through the Palmdale restaurant the way he has moved through life: He charges.

The Colonel wears his trademark baseball cap and string tie. He is 71, big and battered. He slides into the booth. His head hangs forward, white hair streaked back. He has the look of a man enjoying himself during a tornado.

It is a tornado of his own making, a whirlwind of ideas swirling around the table as Col. Melvin Baker expounds on Lawrence of Arabia, the Gettysburg Address, Joshua at the walls of Jericho. Baker’s latest obsession--inspired by a Claremont professor’s books arguing that Merlin and King Arthur actually existed--is researching Merlin’s military exploits.

“Merlin was the head of Arthur’s intelligence agency,” Baker says. “Merlin was a military politician. He dealt in code names, which are still used in intelligence today. The books say he had a thousand secretaries. He has many names, he appears to Arthur in various disguises. The secretaries were spies.”

Unusual lunchtime conversation, for Palmdale or elsewhere. This is a Renaissance man of the Antelope Valley talking, an old warrior whose machine-gun monologues leave some folks shaking their heads.

“They’ll probably tell you I’m a wacko,” Baker growls.

Baker’s resume approaches the dimensions of a Homeric catalogue: cavalryman, semi-professional athlete, war veteran, pilot, teacher, school superintendent, umpire and executive director of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade.

Baker recently retired from the board, a regional economic development organization, after five years as director. Some former colleagues praise him as a high-energy promoter of the Antelope Valley who has contributed to the region’s economic boom.

“He was a live wire,” said Larry Lake, former manager of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. “He’s the hardest working person you’d ever hope to meet. He turned the Board of Trade around. He played a very big part in making the valley what it is today.”

However, there are those who can do without Baker. One former Board of Trade colleague, who asked not to be identified, described him as a loud eccentric and claimed Baker’s boisterous manner became an embarrassment to the organization. The colleague complained that Baker had a penchant for wearing informal garb, such as jumpsuits and baseball caps, at formal events attended by dignitaries.

“He comes on a little strong,” the colleague said. “He’s very outspoken. He did some wonderful things while he was at the board, but he’s a real strange individual.”

Baker’s loudness is partly the result of his deafness in one ear. But he also appears to relish his role as a colorful local character. He remains active on committees working to bring a state university to the area and to increase the valley’s political representation. He said he likes the Antelope Valley because “it is the frontier in every shape and manner.”

Baker also umpires softball games, acts as timekeeper at boxing matches at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds and is a fixture on the racquetball court at Le Club Sportif in Lancaster.

He reads fanatically, his tastes encompassing history, the classics, spy novels and National Geographic. And he readily quotes the authors he reads, sharing his opinions with all the restraint of an avalanche.

“One of the main problems in our society today is the bureaucratic structure,” Baker says. “This is the reason Rome got whipped. The Roman bureaucratic structure became such that no one would say yes or no. Bureaucracy is a child of empire, but it is inevitably the destructive factor of empires.”

Asked whether Baker is a madman or a genius, his friend Frank Roberts, dean of technical education at Antelope Valley College, laughed.

“Probably a little bit of both, more of the latter,” said Roberts. He acknowledged that critics consider Baker “loud, vociferous and something of a braggart.”

But Roberts said his initial doubts gave way to admiration. “When I first encountered the man he claimed to have done so much and been so many things to so many people that I said this isn’t possible. Nobody could have done all that. Then as we got close I found that he told the truth.”

For example, Roberts was dubious when Baker told him he set up an aviation education program while superintendent of the Anderson Valley Unified School District in Boonville, Ca., from 1968 to 1975. But Baker flew Roberts to Boonville and Roberts said he found the program as Baker had described it.

Baker’s life has united academics, athletics and the military. He was born in Louisiana in 1918, on a family plantation where he says he grew up riding horses and working in the fields. The family then moved to Syracuse, N.Y., and Baker played semi-professional basketball and football and made money as a baseball umpire.

In 1940, Baker enlisted in the National Guard, spending time in a cavalry unit, then transferred to the Army Air Corps. In World War II, Baker served as a pilot and squadron commander in air transport operations based in South America.

After the war he attended Syracuse University, majoring in education. “Teaching is exceedingly hard work,” Baker said. “It’s the hardest work I’ve ever done.”

Baker moved to California and worked as a teacher, principal and school superintendent, while continuing to fly and remaining active in the military. He now holds the rank of retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

He came to the Antelope Valley in 1975 and was a school principal and a superintendent during a two-year stint in the Elizabeth-Hughes Lakes Union School District.

His departure from the Board of Trade last summer was a third attempt at retirement, Baker said. He wants to spend more time with his two daughters and grandchildren and wants to tour Greece and England, countries that have produced much of the literature and history he enjoys.

Baker also wants to write a book. His inspiration comes partly from Norma Goodrich, a Scripps College professor and author of the 1986 “King Arthur,” and last year’s “Merlin.” Reviewers praised Goodrich’s literary detective work in making the case that Merlin and Arthur were not figures of legend but existed in England during the fifth and sixth centuries.

Baker struck up a correspondence with Goodrich, who has invited him to dinner and encouraged his research into the military history of Arthurian times.

“He’s a very gallant gentleman,” she said. “He’s so picturesque. It’s very thrilling to meet people who have not been dulled by television or ruined thoroughly by their university education.”