I always knew Steve Hungate as ‘good-looking Steve’. This is because that’s how he introduced himself at “Birthday Steve’s” party (to this day, I'm not sure who the other Steve was). It was at the Academy of Spherical Arts, and even from that first meeting I could tell he was a good bloke, lots of fun, with a pretty much constant mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Steve loved a laugh, and he absolutely adored his wife and children. He always seemed to be grinning and dancing around the edge of ‘naughty’ with one eye on the crowd, to make sure the audience was laughing, and one eye on Carolyn, just to make sure he wasn’t totally overstepping the boundary of good taste.

He had such a love of life, was a real family man, and was one of those people who made everyone feel comfortable and welcome. It was impossible not to see that underneath that cool, jokester exterior was a huge warm heart of gold.

When I think of ‘good-looking Steve’, I think of his deep-fried-anything party, that I missed anyway, having cycled from the east-side of TO to get to the High Park house 30 minutes too late.

He and Carolyn were also super generous, and hosted a fun New Years party where they also welcomed my sister and nephew who had flown up from the US. The game of ‘rude-charades’ was classic Steve, giggling at the naughtiness, while his lovely wife looked on, as we were probably more immature than the kids playing hide & seek upstairs.

I’m definitely a better person for having friends like ‘good-looking Steve’ and the lovely Carolyn. The world needs more people like this.

This story has a special lesson for Cole at the end.

For whatever reason, Steve was a bit of a masochist when it came to his food. He would complain ad naseum about issues with his innards - and then proceed to put some of the nastiest stuff he could find into his mouth. Sometimes I wondered if he did this just so he could complain and gross people out later... about the issues with his innards.

Anyway, at one of our first pub nights at the Bomber in Waterloo, we had ordered some hot chicken wings and finished them in short order. Steve called the waiter over and said, "So those wings were okay. But I wouldn't call them "hot" wings. Can you make some that are really hot?". The waiter asked, "How hot? Like do you want me to hurt you?" Steve got very excited. He said, "Yeah! Hurt me!" From then on, when Steve ordered wings he'd ignore the flavours on the menu and tell the waiter he wanted them to be "hurt me hot".

Steve learned a lesson that night that I'll pass on to Cole. When you're older and you're out eating hurt me hot wings and you go to the washroom - make sure you wash your hands well BEFORE you go to the bathroom. Your mom can explain.

It was the summer of 1B. Steve invited me to Oakville for the weekend and we drove up there in whatever preceded his Jetta. When we got to his house, we had some other errand to run. Steve asked his mom if we could take the Infinite - and she agreed to his request. Steve was pumped. His whole body language changed. Before even seeing the car, I could tell he thought it was hot stuff. Making him hot stuff by extension.

We did whatever we had to do and were headed back to his place. We were in the left turn lane at a huge intersection and when the light turned green, Steve gave 'er big time. It was fun. For about 3 seconds. That's when the back end of the car kicked out and we started fish tailing. Still kinda fun at this point. Then Steve over corrected and we hopped over the curb and mowed down a tree. In the coming months, I would listen to Steve tell this story over and over again. This was another of his endearing traits. Steve would retell a story until he broke it. When he'd tell this story, he'd talk about running over a tiny sapling. Well, I'll have you know, it was a massive tree. Saplings aren't 12 feet tall. He hit the thing dead on and we landed back in the street.

We pulled into the first parking lot we could find to collect ourselves. I actually thought we were going to out of this adventure unscathed. But - one of the tires had blown out a side wall. The kind of flat that can't be fixed. And there had been a plastic cover on the front license plate that had been cracked by the tree.

The rest of the story is boring and was never retold. (Steve's dad was pretty angry - but he hid it well.) But what I've written above was exciting. Steve lived for stories like that. Ones he could retell in all his glory - making people cringe and laugh at the same time.

That was the first of many where Steve took an ordinary situation and amped it up to a great time. (Note, I have PG'd this version of the story - for the sake of the children.)