Meeting a Kiwi

This story starts out with “I met this guy…”

It doesn’t end the way you’d expect. It’s about a Kiwi...but not the fruit.

I was down in Louisville Kentucky in October. I’m down there twice a year for trade shows. This particular trip was much like the rest. A whole bunch of industry business people wandering around, live music in the street, and a lot of restaurants with tables and bars on the sidewalks.  It was like summerfest.

I stayed at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel which is a fabulous place to stay downtown. The rooms don't feel like hotel rooms. When the door was closed it was like being in a beautiful Victorian bedroom. Some day I’d like to take someone there to enjoy it with me.

My last evening was the night I met this guy. I was out at my favorite Irish Pub with a group. It was a comfortable temperature outside and we were scattered around the street waiting for a table. It was worth the wait.

I was standing near the entry to the restaurant when this guy asked me if I had a light. I was alone and watching the band and he caught me off guard. I noticed he had a heavy accent when he spoke. Sounded Australian or something but I wasn’t sure.

He was nice looking, about my age and looked like he just got off a motorcycle. Heavy boots and leather jacket, that kind of stuff.  Normally I would have just handed him the lighter but he got my attention.  Instead, I lit it and held it out for him. He didn’t touch my hand.

His name was Grant and he said he had never been Louisville before and thought the music in the street was cool. I had a hard time understanding what he was saying with his heavy accent. (It was the kind of accent you could listen to in the dark, if you know what I mean) I asked where he was from and he said he was a Kiwi from New Zealand. He told me he was a produce buyer. This was his first trip to the United States.

Interesting. Why was a produce buyer from NZ in Louisville, Kentucky? It's not a hot destination spot for tourists.  I'm guessing it isn't the best place to buy produce...in October.  Unfortunately, my table was ready at that moment. He walked away with a smile.

After dinner my group wandered across the street to another bar. As soon as we walked in I saw Grant and he smiled when he saw me. He bought me a drink. We talked but the music was loud and I couldn't understand what he was saying...mostly we just drank. As the night went on people from my group disappeared. I'm sure they all went back to their rooms to sleep since we were all leaving in the morning.  I don't sleep much so I wasn't concerned about the time.

Grant and I sat at a table outside. I asked why he was in Louisville. That’s when the real conversation started. He had arrived on the east coast a week earlier. He bought a Harley and was riding it all the way across the States to the west coast. Louisville was his planned stop for the night. He was meeting a friend the next day in Kansas, then they were heading to Route 66 for the rest of the trip west. Of course, I was fascinated.

I asked a lot of questions about traveling on a motorcycle. Then I had to ask him to repeat many of the answers because I couldn’t understand him. He told me he had two pairs of clothes for the trip. Reminded me of growing up and only having two pairs of jeans.  My mom used to say "one to wear and one to wash."  One pair would fit in the bike while he wore the other pair.  He said he had to buy the leather jacket because it was colder than he expected. I guess October isn't that cold in New Zealand.  

We went and sat on the curb when the bar closed and the tables were moved inside.  Grant wasn’t just a produce buyer, although that’s how he described himself. He was actually the owner of a company in NZ similar to Peapod. The first grocery and produce delivery company in the country, according to Grant. It was a start up and apparently it was doing well.

He went to college in Japan and had a bunch of high level business and tech degrees. I don’t recall the specifics. I was impressed though. Good looking, smart…business minded. (Why did he live so far away that it wasn’t just in another time zone...it was in a different day?)

His mother was a chef so he grew up in the kitchen, learned to cook, and how to buy the best produce. He talked about his love of cooking. He made me want to learn to cook better. And he made me hungry.

Grant told me he had been together with his girlfriend for seven years and they had two young boys together. They broke up 18 months before this trip because he had put so much time into building his company that he neglected their relationship. The company grew so fast that he couldn’t manage business and family. He missed his boys. He missed his girlfriend. He told me why they weren't married but I don’t remember the reason now.

So here was this Kiwi guy sitting next to me on a curb in Louisville Kentucky at 4 o’clock in the morning pouring his heart out to a total stranger. The stress of the job and the loss of his family was too much to handle so he decided to take a sabbatical and I was sitting right smack in the middle of it. 

It started to rain. We both looked up at the sky, then looked at each other and laughed. I stretched my feet out into the street as if to say “I’ll stay if you stay.” We didn’t move. We got drenched and talked until some time after the sun came up. He told me that people from New Zealand were called Kiwi’s because that was the national fruit. More Kiwi were grown in NZ than anywhere else in the world. I intended to buy some Kiwi as soon as I got home.

At 7am Grant and I walked down to the Starbucks. After our order was filled we headed to my hotel. As we arrived he realized he could see his hotel from mine so he didn’t need a ride. We hugged and said good bye. I wished him well on the rest of his trip then I turned and walked away. I never looked back. I wondered if he did.

I hadn’t slept all night and had to drive six hours home. I drove and thought about Grant. Just another person putting my issues back into perspective. I thought about how destructive it was to put your heart into something without balancing your life. How much of my own dedication to school and work contributed to my loss? Was I neglectful or just blind? I contemplated that for a while. And then I let it go.

I don't know if Grant ever made it across the U.S.  Or if he made it back home to NZ. Or if his sabbatical solved his life problems.  But I do know I wont forget that Kiwi.
KB~