Goodbye, Mr. Conductor

I'm sure you've all heard about the passing of George Carlin this week - a truly funny man. Those without small children may not know that Carlin was also a resident of the Island of Sodor, and served as a narrator for the "Thomas and Friends" series, as well as taking a turn as Mr. Conductor. So he will be missed in this house on several levels.

I just wanted to pass along one of my favorite Carlin bits - always makes me giggle. (Edited a bit because this is a family blog, after all.)

Think for a moment about the concept of the flamethrower. Okay? The flamethrower. Because we have them. Well, *we* don't have them, the army has them. That's right. We don't have any flamethrowers. I'd say we're ****** if we have to go up against the army, wouldn't you? But we have flamethrowers. And what this indicates to me, it means that at some point, some person said to himself, "Gee, I sure would like to set those people on fire over there. But I'm way too far away to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame on them." Well, it might have ended right there, but he mentioned it to his friend. His friend who was good with tools. And about a month later, he was back. "Hey, quite a concept!" WHHOOOOOOOOSSHHH! And of course the army heard about it, and they came around. "We'd like to buy about five hundred thousand of them, please. We have some people we'd like to throw flame on. Give us five hundred thousand and paint them dark brown. We don't want anyone to see them."

Carlin/Rufus/Mr. Conductor - you'll be missed. Be excellent to each other.