Quirky grandfather shocks Today hosts with unusual funeral plans
Michael 'Skip' Field has decided he doesn't want his family crying for him at an ordinary funeral when he dies.
Instead, the quirky Queensland grandfather wants a celebration for his final send off and wants his family to remember him in a very unique way.
Skip shared his funeral plans with Today hosts Sarah and Alex, who were perplexed by Skip's plans for his final send-off.
"I've been to a lot of funerals over the years, I'm an old fart and I never enjoyed any of them," Skip said.
"So come the time I turn toes up, they're going to cart me off to the crematorium for a big barbecue, where I'll be the guest of honour, then when the heat dies down, they're going to put me in a little shoe box and give my young son a ring," he said.
"He'll come and pick me up and I'm an avid cowboy shooter, we load our own ammunition and one of the things that happens to cowboys when they pass on is they have a cowboy salute where you get a big, long line and everybody fires a shotgun, bang, bang, bang, bang, and have a salute."
"Well, I'm going to get my ashes mixed into the shotgun shells and donate the shotgun shells to the range and they can shoot me off down the range."
"Plus all the smoke that comes out at the end of the barrel is a bit blue, but being a Queenslander, I've got a bit of maroon chalk that's going to go in with the ashes, so when they come out at the end of the barrel it's going to be a maroon tinge on it," he said.
Today hosts Sarah and Alex were gob-smacked by the idea of Skip donating his ash-filled bullets to the local firing range, but that's not all he has planned.
"The other thing is a friend of mine's got a cannon and we're going to shoot part of the ashes out of the cannon at Pleasant Range near Dalby," he said.
"Then the kids don't need a big, morbid ceremony, so they're going to have a party here at my house and I bought this thing called the 'loved one launcher' that is like a giant party popper, you put your ashes in and it'll shoot you 75 yards into the air with confetti and streamers and all that - Yeehaw! It's going to be great."
Skip said the whole process cost less than getting a casket for the ground and it would be the last big thing he gets a say in.
Image credits: Today