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mpolo2
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From the Star (and also why it is a shitty newspaper)
All hail Hazel, wonder of the world
Mar 29, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Coyle
Not a whisper here today about the latest fashions Barbara Amiel wore in Chicago or speculations on how a woman advancing on 70 maintains such youthful glow.
Not a word about the callous incompetence at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which the auditor says ignored complaints for years that vendors had been skimming the winnings of ticket buyers.
Not so much as a jot or tittle about budgets federal, provincial or municipal recently dumped upon us.
Not, of course, that there isn't a lot of fodder for discussion in humanity's futile efforts to cheat time, or in the cynicism of governments exploiting human desperation (and innumeracy), or in the important business of how our money is collected, divided and spent.
No, today a tip of the battered old bowler to Greater Toronto's greatest natural resource and wonder of the world.
Hazel.
Very likely, we could stop there. For, really, there's not a lot that hasn't been said about the 86-year-old, forever young mayor of Mississauga, who like others of world-class accomplishment is pretty much known by first name.
But, as it happens, we shook hands with Mayor McCallion at the inaugural meeting of the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority earlier this month, and couldn't help marvelling once again at her vigour and sharpness of mind, at how she sat with the stripling David Miller to one side of her, and TTC chair Adam Giambrone, who must have seemed but a babe in arms, to the other, and held not just her own, but the awe of all around the table.
Casually, she recounted transit lessons learned on a recent visit to Hong Kong and other places around the planet. Long past the time most folks content themselves with riffling through photo albums of all-inclusives visited long ago, she continues to travel – to India and to Tanzania, where she has established the Hazel's Hope charity for children in Africa living with AIDS/HIV.
The best advice she could give people, she said, especially after the death of her husband, was to "have something to keep you occupied."
Then, when one of the national papers reported this week on the Mississauga Board of Trade holding a lifetime-achievement gala dinner April 13 in her honour, it seemed clear that other topics of fleeting import – such as celebrity wives or political scandals or number crunching – could wait until tribute was paid.
"If youth knew; if age could," a poet wistfully wrote.
Well, Hazel can.
And she does so – long before Dove twigged to an ad campaign celebrating the beauty of maturity, and to the perennial satisfaction of her Mississauga constituents – while wearing her years with dignity and grace.
On her first victory as Mississauga mayor in 1978 – and to put things in perspective, that was back before Joe Clark became prime minister – she called herself a "mayor for the people." And it turns out she was.
It is almost comical to look back through the files and review the accounts of her career. The astonishment at her longevity started long ago.
"She's been running Mississauga for 22 years, and at 79 she has no plans to retire," Toronto Life magazine said in a profile as the millennium turned.
Diminutive and scrappy, the headline called her. The very zenith in the art of branding, it said, the words Hazel and Mississauga all but synonyms. Owner of a nickname – Hurricane – entirely appropriate to the region and practically made for her. A hockey player in her girlhood, a step dancer, a lover of lobster, dogs and hard work.
Since she took office, Canada has needed nine prime ministers and Ontario seven premiers, while Mississauga has made do with one mayor. So sure have her re-elections become, landslides of 90 per cent that would have done most Third World dictators proud, that she doesn't bother to campaign, insisting her pitch for votes is done every day of the year.
The motions have, of course, been gone through. "I wouldn't say that she's unbeatable," challenger Roy Willis, a veritable child by comparison at 69, said last November. "Anything can happen."
Out of a sense of decency, all within earshot presumably kept straight faces.
True, anything can happen. But in Mississauga, for a good long while now (her car's unfortunate encounter with a signpost last year notwithstanding) one thing usually does when it comes to staffing the mayor's office. So impressively, in fact, election after election, decade after decade, that Mayor McCallion was named runner-up in the 2005 world mayor contest and also made the subject of a bobblehead doll – in the currency of contemporary culture, the latter honour quite possibly surpassing the former.
In a world gone mad with youth culture, young adults refusing to move out, the middle-aged refusing to grow up, those of even pension age trying desperately to rewind calendars, Hazel McCallion is a beacon, an icon and – time's inroads worn proudly – a sensibly shoed thing of beauty.
The files produce no shortage of lines reflecting both the wonder of those contemplating McCallion's career, and the desperation of trying to say something new.
"She'll be the mayor of Mississauga until she's dead. Or possibly longer," says one headline.
And how's this for an election-night lead:
"See Hazel.
"See Hazel run.
"See Hazel run and win.
"Win, Hazel, win.''
Most sophisticated bit of political analysis I ever wrote.
All hail Hazel, wonder of the world
Mar 29, 2007 04:30 AM
Jim Coyle
Not a whisper here today about the latest fashions Barbara Amiel wore in Chicago or speculations on how a woman advancing on 70 maintains such youthful glow.
Not a word about the callous incompetence at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which the auditor says ignored complaints for years that vendors had been skimming the winnings of ticket buyers.
Not so much as a jot or tittle about budgets federal, provincial or municipal recently dumped upon us.
Not, of course, that there isn't a lot of fodder for discussion in humanity's futile efforts to cheat time, or in the cynicism of governments exploiting human desperation (and innumeracy), or in the important business of how our money is collected, divided and spent.
No, today a tip of the battered old bowler to Greater Toronto's greatest natural resource and wonder of the world.
Hazel.
Very likely, we could stop there. For, really, there's not a lot that hasn't been said about the 86-year-old, forever young mayor of Mississauga, who like others of world-class accomplishment is pretty much known by first name.
But, as it happens, we shook hands with Mayor McCallion at the inaugural meeting of the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority earlier this month, and couldn't help marvelling once again at her vigour and sharpness of mind, at how she sat with the stripling David Miller to one side of her, and TTC chair Adam Giambrone, who must have seemed but a babe in arms, to the other, and held not just her own, but the awe of all around the table.
Casually, she recounted transit lessons learned on a recent visit to Hong Kong and other places around the planet. Long past the time most folks content themselves with riffling through photo albums of all-inclusives visited long ago, she continues to travel – to India and to Tanzania, where she has established the Hazel's Hope charity for children in Africa living with AIDS/HIV.
The best advice she could give people, she said, especially after the death of her husband, was to "have something to keep you occupied."
Then, when one of the national papers reported this week on the Mississauga Board of Trade holding a lifetime-achievement gala dinner April 13 in her honour, it seemed clear that other topics of fleeting import – such as celebrity wives or political scandals or number crunching – could wait until tribute was paid.
"If youth knew; if age could," a poet wistfully wrote.
Well, Hazel can.
And she does so – long before Dove twigged to an ad campaign celebrating the beauty of maturity, and to the perennial satisfaction of her Mississauga constituents – while wearing her years with dignity and grace.
On her first victory as Mississauga mayor in 1978 – and to put things in perspective, that was back before Joe Clark became prime minister – she called herself a "mayor for the people." And it turns out she was.
It is almost comical to look back through the files and review the accounts of her career. The astonishment at her longevity started long ago.
"She's been running Mississauga for 22 years, and at 79 she has no plans to retire," Toronto Life magazine said in a profile as the millennium turned.
Diminutive and scrappy, the headline called her. The very zenith in the art of branding, it said, the words Hazel and Mississauga all but synonyms. Owner of a nickname – Hurricane – entirely appropriate to the region and practically made for her. A hockey player in her girlhood, a step dancer, a lover of lobster, dogs and hard work.
Since she took office, Canada has needed nine prime ministers and Ontario seven premiers, while Mississauga has made do with one mayor. So sure have her re-elections become, landslides of 90 per cent that would have done most Third World dictators proud, that she doesn't bother to campaign, insisting her pitch for votes is done every day of the year.
The motions have, of course, been gone through. "I wouldn't say that she's unbeatable," challenger Roy Willis, a veritable child by comparison at 69, said last November. "Anything can happen."
Out of a sense of decency, all within earshot presumably kept straight faces.
True, anything can happen. But in Mississauga, for a good long while now (her car's unfortunate encounter with a signpost last year notwithstanding) one thing usually does when it comes to staffing the mayor's office. So impressively, in fact, election after election, decade after decade, that Mayor McCallion was named runner-up in the 2005 world mayor contest and also made the subject of a bobblehead doll – in the currency of contemporary culture, the latter honour quite possibly surpassing the former.
In a world gone mad with youth culture, young adults refusing to move out, the middle-aged refusing to grow up, those of even pension age trying desperately to rewind calendars, Hazel McCallion is a beacon, an icon and – time's inroads worn proudly – a sensibly shoed thing of beauty.
The files produce no shortage of lines reflecting both the wonder of those contemplating McCallion's career, and the desperation of trying to say something new.
"She'll be the mayor of Mississauga until she's dead. Or possibly longer," says one headline.
And how's this for an election-night lead:
"See Hazel.
"See Hazel run.
"See Hazel run and win.
"Win, Hazel, win.''
Most sophisticated bit of political analysis I ever wrote.