Lunch, laughs and thank you for Brian Anderson

A few hours before lunchtime on Friday, Gary Johnson had one goal for the afternoon:

"We're going to have fun today so people can do this," said Johnson, president of the Twin Cities publishing company MSP Communications. "He deserves it."

There were plenty of laughs at Friday's luncheon honoring Brian Anderson with the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award for his remarkable 33-year run as editor of Mpls.St. Paul magazine. But Johnson knew that's not why so many of us had come.

Twenty-two years ago, a truly decent guy gave me my first byline when I moved to the Twin Cities and other editors wouldn't take a chance on me. Not just a byline, but a generous piece of real estate in the glossy flagship Mpls.St. Paul. I wrote a light-hearted essay about the insanity of moving from Texas to Minnesota in January and learning that our new home's "Sold" sign would stay in the ground until it could be blow-torched free in the spring.

Culture-shock notwithstanding, our original plan to stay two years turned into three kids from here and, for a good decade, Mpls.St. Paul gave me many plum assignments. The heady part for me as a young writer was that Brian always made time to talk to me for a minute or two in his sunny downtown Minneapolis offices, typically reveling in stories about his kids. Once in a while, he'd buy me lunch to check in.

I moved on from magazines, lost touch. I regret that I didn't tell him until a few weeks ago in a card what his early trust in me meant, because life changes so fast.

Brian's July 2009 editor's column was a droll compendium of mundane spring events that he had turned into Twitter posts: "Watched squirrels chase each other in Loring Park ... washing machine stopped in the middle of rinse cycle ... bought plants."

(On June 29) I visited my doctor for an annual physical. A visit prompted somewhat by some tiredness and light-headedness in the last two weeks, a few red dots on my skin, plus a cold that was bringing on coughing and hoarseness. On July 1, I had a bone marrow biopsy, and on July 2 the biopsy results confirmed the acute myeloid leukemia diagnosis. [His children] David and Liz flew in from L.A. so we could spend the 4th of July weekend together before I was hospitalized Monday, July 5, at Abbott Northwestern.

The road since has been rough, but Brian, a private man, has graciously shared the best and the worst news in the same witty and eloquent way he approaches his magazine columns.

"In my last journal entry, I asked you all to put a hold on the angelic choirs, that I wasn't quite ready for Amazing Grace," he wrote Feb. 18. "I guess I should have mentioned the secular choirs as well, since they have been busy this past week memorializing me before I'm a memorial."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty proclaimed Feb. 13 "Brian Anderson Day" and he has been given his own day in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, too. The self-described "Swede from Lake Wobegon who simply went to work every day in a medium-sized market" was a splendid sport on Friday.

Surrounded by his family, he said he was "shell-shocked" by the Lifetime Achievement award, given by the City and Regional Magazine Association (CRMA), whose previous recipients include Clay Felker, founder of New York Magazine, and Michael Levy, founder of Texas Monthly.

As editor of Mpls.St.Paul since 1977, Brian is the longest-tenured city magazine editor in the country. He was a 1966 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Minnesota. He worked as a reporter, and as a speech writer for Sen. Walter Mondale.

And he mentored so many of us. One of the "blessings of cancer," he told more than 200 family members and friends in attendance, is hearing from many grateful young writers whose careers he helped to set in motion.

He's still fighting, still willing to try therapies, still hoping for a miracle. But the Swede from Lake Wobegon, who simply went to work every day in a medium-sized market, will be all right if a miracle doesn't arrive.

"Most people die not knowing if they've made a difference in the lives of other people," he wrote. "What a huge blessing it has been to learn -- while I'm still alive and kicking -- that my life has touched so many of your lives. Friends have praised me about being so open about my battle with cancer. Well, it's you, dear friends, who have been open about your feelings to me, and I'm so grateful for that."