His name is actually Jerry Goveia, but folks refer to him as ‘Banks Jerry’ (he worked as a manager at Banks DIH for many years before his retirement) to differentiate him from the other guy, the pilot one, with the same-sounding name, and he actually came to mind recently after a column I wrote on flamboyant Guyanese from times past, not in the sense of being flamboyant but as one of those people who leave an impression on you that endures.
I actually knew Jerry as ‘Gov’ going back to the days when we were together at Saints (the timing here is early 1950s) and that’s the name that has stuck with me. Gov seemed to play every sport known to man and some, like labass, known only to Guyanese. He was into soccer, field hockey, high jump, volleyball, 100-yard dash, rugby (I think he was on our national team several times), and was known as a ferocious competitor in each. Any kind of physical challenge, Gov was there. He would go down to the wharf, climb a schooner mast to the very top, and jump into the Demerara River some 60 feet below. Anything that caused the schooner to tilt shoreward could have caused Goveia to hit wooden deck instead of river water, and I believe that eventually the schooner captains put an end to that stunt.
After Saints, when I was working at Atkinson Field, and he was working at Pan Am, we would sometimes go roaming the landscape (Atkinson was dead as a doornail; nothing to do) and one day we were on his motorbike in the abandoned area on the eastern side of the airport. It was now a place of cracked tarmac, with a few rotting telephone poles. Gov spotted one pole in reasonable shape but which had rotted almost completely away at the bottom. He pulled over, got off his bike, and without saying a word to me, started climbing on the metal pegs anchored in the pole. Reaching the top, he then began rocking the pole back and forth to try and break it off. I’m thinking the man’s gone mad; if that pole breaks he’s going to come crashing down to the tarmac 20 feet below. The rotten wood held, to my relief, but not Goveia; he rode off spitting and grumbling that “the damn pole wouldn’t break.”
In the weekend hunting trips he started as a young man, it was the same adventurous approach. Once on a hunt in the Pomeroon River he shot a snake in a tree overhead only to have the reptile fall in the boat. Fortunately for the crew they got the snake overboard in a hurry; Goveia would have probably taken another shot at the creature blowing a hole in the boat in the process. Another time, on a savannah hunt, Jerry’s jeep stalled as he was crossing a shallow creek, and the group was attacked almost immediately by a swarm of African killer bees. Every man jack bolted except Gov who sat there taking the bites and cranking the engine. He told me later the bees were coming by the hundreds, from all sides, and with such ferocity they were smashing into the windshield like pellets. He was brushing off bees with one hand and working the ignition with the other. Eventually, the engine caught and he drove off, but he was very sick man for several days from the venom his body had absorbed.
Goveia was drawn to physical challenges; he would even create them. I remember standing one night in the road outside my house at Vreed-en-Hoop officiating as the starter in a sprint race he had just cooked up on the spot with his crony, the late Roy Gunby. It was a pitch black night, no street lights, and the two of them walked down the road into the darkness, I shouted “You ready?” they shouted back “Yeah,” and I declared “Go.” The two of them came thundering out of the darkness, flashing by me with Gov in front. Never one to give up easily, Gunby asked for another race and we went through the same routine again. They actually ran four races that night – final result, Gov 4-0. I was told of another time when he was with some friends upstairs at Georgetown Club, and he suddenly challenges one of his pals: “I bet you I can beat you downstairs in a race.” Bet agreed, somebody gives them a start signal, but instead of bolting for the stairs, Gov trots over to the window, jumps through onto the shed, then down in the yard below, and is standing there fanning himself as his competitor comes scrambling down the stairs.
There was also this incident after a weekend trip down the West Coast: Gov is on his motorcycle with Gunby on a Monday morning steaming up Vreed-en-Hoop to catch the ferry. About a quarter-mile from the stelling, approaching a high bridge over a trench, he’s overtaking the eastbound traffic when a truck suddenly pulls out into the westbound lane. It’s too late to get back in line, the truck is bearing down, and he’s going too fast to stop. Gov simply swings the bike to the right of the bridge, and they plunge into the trench 10 feet below. I learn all this when the two of them appear on the ferryboat, dripping dirty water and grey trench mud. People were staring; they looked like two swamp rats, leaking muddy water and smelling foul amid all these nicely dressed folks headed for town.
To be fair to him, Gunby looked a bit embarrassed; to Gov, it was just another day at the office; his only concern was going back later to retrieve his faithful motorbike.
I’m only skimming the surface of the Banks Jerry story here; there is a book in the guy and one surprising piece of that tale will be that while caught up in all those wild adventures Jerry has remained a genial kind-hearted person with never a cutting word for a soul.
Looking back on my life at the people I have known, I can’t think of another individual who has been a whirlwind matching him. How many people you know have jumped 60 feet from a schooner mast into a river, battled African killer bees to a draw, and ridden a motorbike at 40mph off a bridge into a trench? In my circle, I know only one – Gov. They just don’t make them like him anymore.
