On Sunday morning at the synagogue breakfast honoring talk radio star Larry Elder, a different side of Antonio Villaraigosa emerged.

He was a shrunken version of the outspoken mayor of Los Angeles who was term-limited four years ago.

Standing before a couple hundred deeply religious men and women, was he cowed?

Where was the fire from a hard-bitten politician touting himself against stout Democratic opposition for governor next year?

He did not remotely resemble a candidate for statewide office – more as if he were running for alternate president of the Women’s Club.

Peace and tranquility – strangers to his lexicon — were his oratorical stepping stones at Bais Naftoli synagogue in the sprawling Orthodox neighborhood of LaBrea.

His soft utterances of sunny feelings must have been rented for the morning.

The quintessential holiness of the setting surely restrained him. He will not enter any place more religious in the coming 17 months.

Two factors appear to be reshaping him:

• Villaraigosa turned 64 years old in January, and
• After playing around for years, he married for the second time last summer, deep inside Mexico, in San Miguel de Allende. Businesswoman Patricia Govea may have taken over the steering wheel of his formerly colorful life. She controls the only key that will unlock his oats supply.

Sixty-four is scarcely a slowdown age these energetic days – unless you have wildly sowed your lifetime oats supply on the road to 64.

Between aging and the presumed soothing effects of marriage in your 60s, the cumulative effect may have spun Mr. Villaraigosa into a melted ice cream cone.