It was some time after midnight when I read the news, Douglas Adams, author, dead, Age 49. For a moment my breath stilled and the night was utterly quiet. My mind flashed back to the night, so many years ago, when I first began my relationship with Douglas.

The rain was coming down... hard. Slowly balding weathermen in odd looking bow ties up all night, warning of tornadoes in the south and hail in the north. I, on the other hand, lay in my bunk bed... watching as the hands on my alarm clock passed midnight, heralding a new day. Sheets of rain hammering my window pane only seemed appropriate, the dreary weather only reflecting the dreariness in my own heart. I was a geek, a dork, a weirdo.. and I knew it. School days were spent at the back of class, making up weird, funny tales with my friends and drawing comic strips about rocket boot wearing lawyers and talking two-headed dogs. No one else got it though. Everyone just thought me a freak. And that, not the rain, kept me awake on a school night.

Resigning myself to sleeplessness, I flipped on my bed light and reached under my bed where I hadstowed my backpack. Inside was my latest acquisition from the school library, an odd looking little book with the comforting words "Don't Panic" emblazoned on the cover. Underneath them, a name, Douglas Adams.

By 1AM, I was chuckling softly as I read about Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters, chronically depressed robots, and discovered the meaning of everything is in fact simply 42. Towels were everything, white mice ran the world, and I was no longer alone. Here was a kindred spirit, whose sensibilities were every bit as wacky, odd, and funny as my own. Over the course of the next year I read every single Adams book I could pry out of the school librarian's clammy old hands. And when I had made my way through the library's full Doug Adams supply, I started in again.

Douglas Adams books have entertained and inspired people of all ages around the world for years. There is NOTHING like them. From the Hitchhiker series to the adventures of Dirk Gently Holistic Detective, his books have brought creativity, wit, imagination, and intelligence to the shelves of all of us. With his passing, the literary world is filled with a void that will probably never be filled again. The movie world to suffers, for what chance now does Hitchhiker have of making a PROPER showing on the big screen without the master behind the helm? Most of all, his family suffers, and no matter how big a fan the rest of us may be, we can only wonder at their loss and offer them this:

Douglas Adams gave us something wonderful, never doubt his greatness. So one last time, I'll pick up my towel, pocket my guide, and hitch a ride to the stars... who knew how great that could be?

Douglas Adams
1952 - 2001

You've endured the Hobbit's madness, tell him what you think! CLICK HERE