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It was hard to tell who was the veteran politician Friday night, Archbishop Andy Hutchison or his old friend Mayor Hazel McCallion.
At a special fundraising evening to honour McCallion's recent elevation to the Order of Canada, a lot of people must have looked at the program and wondered, why was the head of the Anglican Church in Canada chosen to speak about McCallion's career?
Some 10 seconds after he began talking, all became clear.
Hutchison has known Hazel since she was the mayor of Streetsville and he was administering to his first flock in Meadowvale.
In his speech, Hutchison was funny and insightful and hit just the right tone. I guess practicing every Sunday has its advantages.
Her many acolytes tend to be way too reverential around Her Warship but, ironically, the minister didn't fall into that trap.
He explained that Sam McCallion sometimes used to take the pulpit at Streetsville Trinity Anglican, where the McCallions worshipped. When that happened, Hazel would go to hear Hutchison's sermons.
"You want a lot of things in a husband, but preaching is not one of them," advised the Anglican primate.
Everyone knows that Sam and Hazel met in the Anglican Young Peoples' Association, but, as Hutchison made clear, the church experience deeply affected McCallion's political beliefs, too.
The Archbishop mentioned some of the mayor's iron-clad political rules for success, including the fact that you never mention your political opponent by name.
That obviously revived some memories for the mayor. When she got her turn, she re-told the joke that launched a dynasty in Mississauga.
The mayor used it regularly during her 1978 campaign against the incumbent who must not be named: "Both my opponent and I died and started on our way to heaven. St. Peter met us at the gate. He asked us what we did for a living and we said we were politicians.
"St. Peter explained that heaven was surrounded with ladders. He said he was going to give us each a box of chalk and we were to write, on each rung, a promise that we didn't keep.
I got to the second rung and someone stepped on my hand.
It was my opponent coming down for another box of chalk."
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The evening sponsored by the Community Foundation of Mississauga also featured a new commissioned drink called a Hazeltini, consisting of vodka, lemon juice and one of the mayor's favourite libations, Harvey's Bristol Creme Sherry.
I tried one. Pleasant enough, but didn't have enough kick to honour its inspiration.
To do McCallion right, the cocktail has to be a mule-kicker. And, of course, it must have bitters.
Someone who's been at a few closed-door meetings with the mayor at City Hall might suggest it be called the Hazel Wallbanger.