There are two kinds of obituaries in this world: the quick brushstroke of facts, and then the rare treat—an obit that stops you mid-scroll, prompts a double-take, and rewards you with a grin. The latter is a form reserved for people like Gary Wolfelt, whose recent self-penned sendoff wasn’t just a tallying of life’s milestones, but a catalog of narrow escapes and sly jokes, all laid out with an honesty most of us hope we’ll have at the finish line.
Crafting a DIY Sendoff
Details surrounding Wolfelt’s final flight are matter-of-fact: as reported in both NewsNation and FOX59, the 72-year-old Lafayette resident died alone in Ohio when his homebuilt Express 2000 FT aircraft crashed on May 5. He’d spent a whopping 17 years building that plane from the ground up, a detail shared by his wife, Esther, and featured in both outlets. That’s commitment—or perhaps just the inevitable outcome of a personality drawn, as Wolfelt was, to hard-won and occasionally hazardous projects.
In his own words, Wolfelt summed up the moment of departure succinctly: “I am completely dead now. I am surprised that it took this long to happen.” No euphemisms, no beating around the bush—just a frank, oddly cheerful admission from a man who seemed to have developed a personal rapport with misfortune.
A Catalog of Closeness (to Disaster)
Wolfelt’s sense of comic timing didn’t stop at the announcement of his own demise; his obituary, cited in both Fox59 and NewsNation, rattles off a litany of brushes with disaster that reads like the lost script of a slapstick serial. Among his “long series of events and mishaps,” Wolfelt recounted a fly ball to the head during his Little League days—a season where, he dryly observed, his team went a legendary 0-20. There was the horse that nearly altered his vocal range permanently, the near miss with a collapsing brick chimney, and, in an almost cartoonish turn, a fall down the stairs with a safe in hot pursuit.
The safe incident, as described in both reports, seems precariously close to being an urban legend, but Wolfelt’s tone makes clear it was all too real. His remedy? “Thank goodness for pain killing drugs!” he wrote, a line that lands as much as a punchline as a mantra.
Both outlets also relay Wolfelt’s playful accusations—suggesting his sister may have had a role in the horse incident—and his apology to former classmates for, of all things, failing math class (the fly ball, he insisted, should take the blame).
Dogs Over People, and Other Unfiltered Opinions
When it came to the selective affections of canine companionship, Wolfelt’s view was crystal clear. Referencing his lack of children, NewsNation notes he mused, “Generally a dog will only bite you when you have it coming. This is not the case with many people.” On the hierarchy of loyalty, he seemed firmly settled.
And amidst the levity, FOX59 points out that Wolfelt considered his 40-plus years of marriage to Esther one of life’s greatest achievements—demonstrating, perhaps, that even the accident-prone can stick a landing where it truly matters.
No Funeral, Just the Cardboard Version
Wolfelt’s posthumous planning was, unsurprisingly, unorthodox. Both outlets document his wish for no formal funeral; “I don’t want people coming by to look at me all dressed up and stretched out in an expensive box looking as bad as I will probably look in a completely dead condition.” His suggestion instead: a party where a life-size cardboard cutout could stand in, with the wry postscript that someone would surely want to claim it for a dartboard when the festivities ended. It’s a proposal that would put even the most elaborate Viking sendoff to shame.
Further background shared by Esther Wolfelt and cited in NewsNation rounds out the man behind the jokes: decades as owner and president of Wolfelt Electronic Security, an education at Purdue focusing on aviation technology, and—because one experimental aircraft apparently wasn’t enough—a self-built helicopter that he piloted before turning his attention to airplanes.
A Life Signed Off with a Wink
Obituaries rarely carry the stamp of the subject’s own wry perspective. But Wolfelt saw fit to self-edit his life, distilling decades of mishaps, love, and irrepressible humor into a narrative that sidesteps bitterness for acceptance and the faintest glimmer of mischief. In a detail emphasized by FOX59, he wrapped things up with characteristic finality: “Goodbye and Peace. I am hanging up now.”
It’s worth asking: is Wolfelt’s gleeful approach to his own mortality a relic of Midwestern stoicism, or is it something else—a worldview forged by survival, duct tape, and enough close calls to make anyone philosophical?
As funerals become flashier and farewells more manufactured, Wolfelt’s blunt, cardboard-cutout approach—equal parts joke and instruction—feels oddly modern. Is this genre of self-authored, unsentimental closure destined to remain rare? Or will more of us find the nerve (and the humor) to take the wheel one last time?
Either way, Wolfelt’s closing act lands exactly as intended. He has officially “hung up”—and one suspects, somewhere, a dog is wagging its tail approvingly.
