A ‘Marlboro Man’ made a memorable boss

If you had seen Bert Baker back in 1954, you may have thought the “Marlboro Man” had come to visit Casper, Wyo. Bert was my boss when I worked on outdoor sign construction in Casper for Midwest Advertising. Bert was a rancher, a cowboy and a construction worker, and I was his helper.

He was a great boss, he was a hard worker, and he never asked me to do something he wouldn’t do himself — and he was funny and kind.

He didn’t smoke Marlboros, however he was a Bull Durham man and rolled his own cigarettes. The little tag from his bag of tobacco always stuck out of his shirt pocket, ready for him to tug it out and roll a smoke.

He had only one weakness that I knew of, and that was his bottle of Four Roses bourbon he kept under the seat of our work truck.

We traveled much of the state, erecting new advertising road signs, (usually huge signs from 25 to 50 feet long, and 12 to 16 feet high) and repairing older ones. It was hard work.

The interstate highway system hadn’t begun construction, so the old Lincoln Highway was the main east-west route.

I recall a couple of trips we made that stick in my mind, and I’ll share them with you.

As you would imagine, when we were out of town

Midwest Advertising picked up the tab for our meals and lodging. It was a good life for this 16-year-old, who prior to this job had few occasions to eat in a restaurant or sleep in a hotel bed.

The first weeklong trip we took was in and around the Cody, Wyo., area, and on Friday afternoon, after we had packed our gear on the truck for our trip back to Casper, we stopped in a nice restaurant (they all seemed nice to me) and Bert ordered T-bone steaks for us.

I was stunned. Can you imagine paying the outrageous sum of $2.75 for a meal? The mind boggles.

A few weeks later our assignment found us on the opposite side of Wyoming, in Newcastle, just a few miles from Devil’s Tower National Monument and the Black Hills in South Dakota.

Our assignment was to erect a pair of large 50-footers one on each side of the city on the main highway.

The soil in the area was composed mainly of bentonite clay, very tough to dig by shovel, so Bert had located a rancher who owned a tractor with a large post hole digger, and the afternoon we arrived we went out to find him and make arrangements for him to dig the holes needed to anchor and erect our signs.

The rancher gave Bert the directions to his spread, and it was nearly dark when we set out to find him.

It took over an hour until we located the tiny cabin he and his family lived in. A price was settled on and he agreed to meet up the next morning to dig our holes.

Bert and I returned to our hotel, and after a nice meal we were talking about how life must be for our tractor owner. I was only too happy to snuggle up in my nice clean hotel bed, thinking how that little family coped.

Bert sat back, rolled a cigarette and poured himself a couple of glasses of bourbon — oh yes, the bourbon. And that brought back memories of another trip made by Bert and I to Rock Springs, Wyo., to erect a couple of signs there.

Fortunately for Bert, the hotel we stayed in had its own bar and they must have had a copious quantity of Four Roses because that first night, after dinner, I headed back to our room, got into bed and listened to the radio. I was sound asleep, when I heard Bert stumble into the room (it was after 1 a.m.) and flop onto his bed where he stayed, snoring and fully clothed for the rest of the night.

I was up by 6:30 a.m., ready for breakfast, but the still comatose Bert mumbled something about coffee and for me to go ahead and have breakfast.

A half-hour later, when I returned to the room

Bert was moving — but barely — he informed me that I’d have to take the truck and go to the state employment office and hire a temporary worker. He “needed to rest.” Somehow, he clambered into the passenger side of the truck, and passed out.

I hired a young Hispanic man to help me with the work of the day, and his English was much better than my Spanish, but we communicated. He called me Mister Mike and told me to call him Tony. We headed out to the job site and began work, as Bert slept in the truck.

We did OK, and by late afternoon Tony and I had pretty much finished the heavy work on the sign and I was high up in the structure while Tony was on the ground, tossing up the stuff I needed to me as I completed the project.

I needed one piece of 2 by 4 inches, 26 inches long. I relayed the info to Tony who had placed the board on the saw horses. He fumbled with the tape measure and I waited. He was obviously having a bit of difficulty, and stood there with his hands on his hips, turned up to me, and asked: “Mister Mike, how many hammer handles long is 26 inches?”

Well, we got the job done, and by quitting time, Bert had recovered enough to once again assume boss status.

It was a memorable trip, and you know, but I’m still wondering “how many hammer handles is 26 inches?” Hmmm.