I have said it before and often, but some things need repeating: particularly in a time when we see so much to fix in Guyana, we should be also taking time on the obverse to champion what is of value among us in our people. Indeed, my song “Where Are Your Heroes, Caribbean” is about just that. From that stance, the untimely passing this week of Trans Guyana Airways linchpin Chris Correia leads me to mention three Guyanese men who belong in that category of “stalwart sons.”
The first one of the three goes back to the early 1950s when I was a grass-green teenager, just out of Saint Stanislaus College, and working in Timehri as a Signals Clerk (basically office staff) at B. G. Airways. This was in the time of the legendary Art Williams and Harry Wendt. In that post, while I interacted with persons in various positions, a stalwart son I remember fondly is a man named Galton (I cannot recall his surname). He was head-man in the crew of loaders – tall, strapping, and always tidily dressed – but what caught me about him immediately was the positive attitude he brought to everything. He was good in his work duties, but so were some other loaders; where Galton stood out from the rest of the group was in his very sunny outlook on life. Even when he complained, he would find a way to smooth the edge of what he was saying, and, indeed, his manner was a major reason he ended up as boss of the loaders; he could resolve issues, arrive at remedies, using that tool. He had not gone far in formal education, but he had acquired significant life skills and used them effectively. Galton was probably in his thirties then, and I lost track of him after I migrated in the late 50s, but the practicality of his positive personality stayed with me.
