Holden.
I took some children for a quick drop-by to the skate park because.
You don’t need a reason to go to a park, including a skate park, We took snack and some ideas for conversation.
Note: this is also the infamous skate park where I ruptured my calf last year. Full story here.
Anyway. We’re there. This three-year old is riding around a balance bike like crazy. Crazy good. His parents and sub-two-year old sis are there. Dad’s riding on two wheels, doing all kinds of cool tricks. Evident where the kid’s skills came from. Riding down all the ramps, pacifier in mouth, helmet leaping off his head, which is a good thing, as he was almost inadvertently crushed by his father in an errant move that coulda gone full on catastrophic fast, but didn’t. I did supply some emergency first aid supplies to the elder. But that’s a different story. The actual story I’m referencing here - and it’s a partial snippet, not really a story - is that I tossed a few lines of interchange back and forth between the mom, who was watching her boys skate and ride, and I heard her refer to the boy as Holden.
This is his real name. I often change the names of people I’m referencing or writing about just to preserve a small corner of privacy in this privacy-challenged world where people and social media accounts sharing your every moment is an expectation; privacy a luxury rather than inherent right. Anyway. For the sake of what I’m about to say, I have to say his actual name. Holden. His name was Holden. This is a great name.
“You probably get this all the time,” I said. “But Holden: cool name. Catcher in the Rye?”
“Uh, no!” she laughed. “That’s a book, right?”
Yes. That is a book. A book that most people - and by most, I mean 100 percent of people - should read. Its title character is a boy with the last name “Caulfield.”
First name “Holden.” Of course I thought it was a reference to Salinger’s 1951 classic. Like many, I was captivated and influenced throughout and after my first read, both in substance and style.
My mind went immediately to the other Holden. “Oh…William Holden, the actor?”
“Whose that?” she asked, laughing again. “No, he’s named after the snowboard company.”
“The snowboard company…”
(I hazarded a guess)
”…Holden?”
“Yeah,” she says. “My husband named him.”
We chatted for couple minutes about snowboarding and names, and then her husband, somewhere in there, almost inadvertently eviscerated his son with an errant jump off the ramp; a ramp of which his son had crashed at the bottom ten seconds before and was splayed out nursing his minor injury. But that’s another story, and yes, I was a hero and pulled all three of my first aid kits out to offer what I had.
Because you gotta be prepared.
Holden. Everybody’s gotta read it.
