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By Teresa Masterson
Staff Writer NBC10.com

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“Duuuuude. Crocodile Hunter dead. Have no idea why I feel it necessary to alert you to this.”

That was the text message I sent Labor Day when I found out Steve Irwin, that crazy guy who talked about crocodiles the way guys at a local bar talk about hot girls, had died. That guy.

I had to laugh once I sent the message because the recipient was an old friend who I used to talk to regularly, but time and life have made the conversations sparse and only brought on by monumental events.

I had to laugh because evidently the sting ray-to-the-chest death of the nut bar, who said things like “crikey” and regularly body-slammed large reptiles, had unwittingly become one of those “monumental events,” and I couldn’t immediately pinpoint why.

I hadn’t thought about Irwin in years, and his death provoked a hint of sadness that I didn’t expect. I suppose the news brought me back to a different time in my life.

You see, for some reason there was a lull in college when my friends and I had all been heartbroken at the same time and spent most of our weekday, non-class, non-partying, non-sports-team-practice time watching television and making each other laugh.

The funniest part about this, really, is that the brokenhearted friends of which I speak were all guys. Macho, basketball-playing, beer-drinking guys’ guys.

None of us can really remember how it came about that I was included in this group. Regardless, I found myself regularly sitting on a couch in a living room full of boys and, more often than not, the Crocodile Hunter was on the screen in front of us.

We weren’t huge fans. I don’t think we sought him out, but as most people in their late 20s and early 30s will recall, the Crocodile Hunter was all over television when we were in college.

Very often Irwin was background noise to whatever conversation or card game was going on, but we would always pause for one of Irwin’s wide-eyed exclamations and proclamations of joy when a crocodile would come close to biting his leg off. Instead of a reaction of panic or fear, Irwin would glow with admiration for the creature and inevitably declare that the crusty reptile was feisty and beautiful.

You almost had to believe him. And then you had to laugh until your stomach hurt.

I could say that there’s a deeper theme here. I could say that Irwin touched our lives like no other. I could say that Irwin’s passion and love for the most rejected group of animals on earth was the perfect salve for our broken hearts, giving us hope that we too could be loved once again.

I could say all of that.

But it wouldn’t be true, and the insincere sappiness might make me throw up in my mouth, just a little bit.

The bottom line is that he made us laugh. He was, by societal norms, a little bit crazy. And a little bit crazy is a refreshing change sometimes.

What’s not to like about a guy who calls a female crocodile his “gorgeous girl,” and almost made us believe that the King Cobra he was lovingly stroking was "a beaut”?

I don’t know, maybe Irwin was a little bit more than a good laugh. He had zeal for what he did, and he believed that what he did was for the greater good. For a group of college students who were trying to find career paths, Irwin was a nice reminder that having passion for your work is imperative for success and happiness.

The hint of sadness I felt may also have come from the fact that Irwin’s ability to emerge unscathed after wrestling 400-pound dinosaurs made him invincible in a way. After watching him for any period of time, you started to believe that he could do anything.

His death, caused by an animal that children are allowed to pet at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, was almost like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real. Steve Irwin was only human.

I could also credit my melancholy to nostalgia. It made me think of a simpler time.

But then again, we also watched a lot of “Jackass” in those days, and I just don’t think Johnny Knoxville’s death from an infection caused by attaching his eyelashes to a pickup truck and letting it drive away would have the same effect. At least I hope it doesn’t. Crikey.

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