A MENTOR GONE TOO SOON
Ottawa journalist Mark Anderson made a difference in the life of Alex Anderson.
We see the future in a rear-view mirror. Like a trick shooter at a circus, we stumble through life, walking backwards, sometimes slow and cautious, other times rushing, tripping and falling on our ass.
The milestones line up in a row; signposts falling away to the horizon that say “You’re getting older.”
I met Mark Anderson in 1993. Fresh from completing my first year of J-school, I was looking for a summer job in journalism.
I flipped through the Yellow Pages and made a list of local publications. I knew that to be a reporter you had to have the stones to knock on doors.
That first day I knocked on the door of the Citizen, the Sun and the Orléans Star; got politely told to go away each time. Demoralized, I almost didn’t go out the next day, but I knew a successful reporter was persistent.
I walked through the door of the Ottawa Business News, put on a smile I didn’t feel, and asked to speak to Mark Anderson. Instead of screening me, the receptionist picked up the phone. I swallowed, trying to work some spit into my suddenly barren mouth.
He was younger than I expected for a newspaper editor: early 30s, with curly blond hair. Dressed in khakis and a button-down cotton shirt, he offered a tentative smile and asked what I wanted.
“I’m a journalism student and I’m looking for summer work.” “Let’s talk,” he said. I showed him my campus newspaper clips, nothing remotely related to the stuff OBN covered.
He nodded judiciously then explained that although OBN didn’t have the money, he knew about a provincial program that would provide funding to businesses to hire summer students. If I was interested he’d look into it.
I didn’t visit any other publications. I didn’t need to anymore.
Sometimes you just have to go for it. Put yourself out there. Try.
That was the first lesson Mark taught me. Others came that summer, like tell your boss you don’t have your driver’s licence before borrowing his car and, later that same day, don’t ding your boss’s car. There were journalism lessons, too — what facts are relevant, how to craft the story, write for your audience — but that was No. 1.
Sure, parents, teachers, coaches all said the same thing. But for them the lesson was theoretical. Try your best and undefined good things will happen in the undefined future.
Mark provided the definition. Moreover, he showed me I was right. Journalism is about knocking on doors and being persistent.
Over the intervening years I’ve seen Mark infrequently.
Early on, there were dinners with our wives. Later, when Mark was at Financial Post Magazine in Toronto, he put me up when I went down looking for work. My pilgrimage to the centre of the Canadian publishing universe failed, but he brought me into FP to do some editorial work so I could cover the cost of my trip. After that we drifted apart.
Then in the summer of 2013 I was doing some client work in his neighbourhood and we got together for lunch. He was heavier than I remembered, older, but he still had a mischievous smile and an honest-to- God twinkle in his eye. We talked about writing and family and sports — things we were passionate about. He told me about fishing and the trips he’d taken for magazine assignments and about teaching at Algonquin College, which he loved.
He didn’t tell me about cancer.
I found out about cancer when I read his obituary in October. He was 51.
I’ve been walking backwards, balancing the mirror over my shoulder, and I’ve tripped on something unexpected. I’ve landed on my ass, and it hurts. And suddenly I feel old. But because I’m facing backwards I see all those milestones with the clarity of hindsight. Milestones like my first real job. My first paid byline. The first friend lost before his time. And I see Mark’s first lesson, the lesson that helped me get my career off the ground, that helped me make a life for myself and my family.
Thanks, Mark.