My name is Holden Fenner. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting me, there are two things you notice right away. I’m bald, and I have a jacked up name.

Actually, the name isn’t really jacked up. It’s two syllables, and you say it just like it’s spelled. That said, half the people trying to pronounce my name sound like it’s their first day of Hooked on Phonics.

Me: ‘Holden.’

Them: ‘Hawden?’

‘No, Hol-Den.’

‘Hawldren?’

‘Sure. Whatever you say, chief.’

But most people do eventually get it, and then the inevitable question comes. ‘Did your parents name you after Holden Caulfield?’ At least that’s the question I get at Syracuse University.

At Syracuse you are presumed to have read a book once or twice. If you went to my grade school, you were doing well if you could pick a book out of the lineup at least two in every three tries.

At first I was just the kid with the funny name. Then we learned about anatomy, and everybody wanted to know what I was holdin’. Well, they did until one day I got sick of it, told them off, and then had to spend an hour discussing appropriate classroom topics with my father and the principal.

Personally, I’m just proud that they were even able to learn that much out of the class. We were given a vague description of the male anatomy and had about three seconds to ask the gym teacher any questions we wanted to about sex. I spent three years thinking I had ‘public hair.’

If, however, you happen to be a 40-year-old woman, I get a much different response to my name. ‘Oh my god, you mean like Holden on ‘As the World Turns?”

Well, no. I wish I was him. He still has hair. That’s now a treasured memory for me. You have to look at pictures from before I turned 15 to find it. Trust me, there is nothing more humbling for a 15-year-old then to walk into Eckerd and find out you are beyond the help of Rogaine.

I didn’t drink back then, so I couldn’t drown my sorrows away. I couldn’t go emo; what would I dye? I would have been the outcast. They all snickered at my fate in their lonely, lonely little corner of the world. Not outwardly, that would have expressed emotion. But inwardly, I could feel it.

I guess being bald isn’t so bad. It’s just that I never thought I would be able to sit down with a bunch of 45-year-old guys and relate to their hair problems. At this point, I just want to get married. That way, I can get divorced, buy a new car and get the midlife crisis over with.

Baldness affects me in ways I never thought it would. The other morning, I couldn’t sleep, so I started channel surfing.

I was channel surfing the way every guy in America channel surfs: I was looking for anything that was blowing up, getting shot or running very slowly on her way to save that poor girl who was drowning.

What I ended up doing was getting lost in a Rogaine infomercial for about an hour and a half. I won’t lie; I took a few notes.

I went back and forth for a few years trying to hide the receding hairline, but then decided just to shave it clean. That came out all right, but then I lost my razor and had to buy a new one. Have you bought a razor recently? There’s a Twilight Zone moment.

I looked at them and thought, ‘When did John Deere start making razors?’

This is the first time I ever had to read an instruction manual to shave.

I bought this five-bladed monstrosity, and as far as I could tell, it’s basically a universal remote.

I was afraid that if I touched the wrong button I was going to set off a car bomb somewhere. Plus, I have to start this razor up before I can use it. Mine wouldn’t start the other day, so I went ahead and checked the oil level, because every 10 blades or three months it needs a change.

On the other hand, I’m beginning to understand why airport security isn’t letting these things on planes any more.

Airport security isn’t letting a lot of things on planes these days for that matter, including me. The other day I had a major first in my life. You know, one of those things you remember your entire life: your first kiss, your first beer, the first time you get pulled aside by Homeland Security to be questioned as a potential terrorist. Apparently, I broke some rules.

They weren’t going to let me take my shampoo on the plane, and they hit me with a whole laundry list of reasons why. It wasn’t less than three ounces, it wasn’t in a plastic bag and it was ticking.

I kind of understand some of the rules they’ve made. Have you ever seen a clean-shaven terrorist? I mean, if a dude with a three-foot beard tries to carry-on a razor, maybe security should have some questions for him.

‘Do you have any connections to al-Qaida? Do you have anything against the United States? Are you going to blow our plane up?’ But what am I going to do with shampoo? Start a salon in the back of the plane? ‘Open the cockpit door or I’m skipping the conditioner!’

Holden Fenner is a junior at Syracuse University. He has noticed that after several years of debate, the Euclid-Lancaster traffic light still hasn’t decided on a favorite color. It does, however, seem to have ruled yellow out of the running. He can be reached at htfenner@syr.edu.

Published on September 10, 2008 at 12:00 pm