So it goes, “So long and thanks for all the fish.”īenjamin Ervin is a senior studying English literature and writing at Ohio University. that we can relate to, that we speak through, and it’s in these small moments that we share that we truly see what makes life so special. It is hard to be open with others, but sometimes there is that rare book, film, food, game, show etc. For all of us, college is a new and daunting experience, and there is always something that binds us as creators, readers and educators. It was the opening of interests, to discuss and grow as a community.įor Athens, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” represents only one facet of the little bubble we experience. I understood the recommendations to bond. Returning to see the bench, reading the name of Vincent and seeing the quote that sent me into an Adams spiral has brought me full circle. That the joy of the book didn’t come from reading it but sharing it. Then, the long-winded recommendations, the reciting of scenes and quoting lines became clear to me. I attempted to rant about the book to a friend, the humor of the scenes only coming out when spoken. The book struck me as melodramatic, sardonic and lacking any semblance of jokes. I carried a collector’s edition of the book in my bookbag to read on lunch breaks. My trepidation to start the book made me push off my reading, until a slow summer job saw me walking around Athens’ campus as both a team leader and student worker. Between English majors, book clerks, engineers, life-safety technicians, strangers on elevators, librarians and coworkers each recommending the book in some county lobby for my reading time. Since then, few books have been recommended to me as much as Douglas Adams. It was a quote from an author I didn’t know, that was funny, hopeful and well-worded, a goodbye that became my entry into Douglas Adams. The quote itself has become a modern idiom for shutting down business or retiring from a position, inspired by the dolphins in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” who broadcast thanks to all humanity before leaving Earth.īefore I knew the significance of this quote, I was struck by the absurdity of it. “So long and thanks for all the fish,” -Douglas Adams

I had came across the bench during a hike nearly a decade before, and read the following quote: The bench commemorates the life of Vincent Patacca Riley, a fellow Athenian who passed on too young. Dressed a little like Lee Van Cleef in my wide brim hat and flannel, I felt ready to revisit a bench on a ridgetop near the Dairy Barn.

This is for fans of games, Shakespeare and “ Phantom of the Opera.” Instead, my last story is one of my favorite Athens’s experiences. For everyone who has recommended ideas or premises for articles that I never wrote, I am sorry I never realized them, and hopefully one day you’ll find the time to write them.

Thank's for the fish douglas adams