I Spent Two Years Researching This Column

By Joel Stein

I'm not much into community service, but I do like the idea of small children idolizing me. That's why I couldn't resist signing up for the Time to Read program, where I would meet with a 12-year-old once a week for two years and improve his reading skills. I also know that I'm highly unreliable, so I got two co-workers to sign up with me. Bravely opting for the "condensed, intensive" training seminar, we withstood three hours and eight chocolate chip cookies to listen to two of the sweetest women I've ever wanted to kill say the phrase "read with the child" 136 different ways. It seemed that the basis of the program was to read Time Inc. publications with our tutee. This was brilliant not only because it gets kids hooked for life on our product but also because In Style is a great way to reach underprivileged children.

In the days before meeting Jovon Lee, our tutee, we divided our time between picking out which dorm he'd live in his freshman year at Stanford and determining which wind instrument he should play. At our first session, we spent most of the time telling our life stories and how they had led us to become paragons of selfless giving. Then we let him know just how cool we were. Eventually, I found myself saying things like, "I did some of the rap singing myself in seventh grade. I called myself the Rap King."

After the third time he excused himself to use the bathroom, we asked him to try to read a story from TIME. He did this with such breathtaking speed and obvious comprehension that we were completely exhilarated for about five minutes. Then we realized that we had a year and 51 weeks to kill.

The actual reading part of our meetings fell apart the fifth time I asked, "What do you want to read in TIME this week?" and he didn't choose my column. I realized it was more effective to define reading in a broader sense, as in saying, "Can you read how many tickets it takes to play Pop-A-Shot?" during a trip to the ESPN Zone.

Jovon, though smart, clever and exceedingly charming when explaining how he was framed for the wet-toilet-paper fight in the bathroom, didn't seem so psyched on Stanford despite our admittedly exaggerated description of seminars on video games. And the instrument thing, partly owing to some oboe trash talking on my part, wasn't going anywhere. There were nights when I dreamed of switching him with Elian, but that may have been more about my freakish need for media attention.

This month ended our two-year relationship. And perhaps what was most surprising is just how much I failed to improve Jovon's life. By "improve" I mean "turn him into me." So by the time we had our commencement party, I was psyched that I was getting back my Tuesday afternoons to work on my watercolors.

But last Tuesday, as I finished a lovely still life of Liquid Paper and Rubber Band Ball, I missed Jovon. He's nonchalant, slick, adored by his female classmates and doesn't have to resort to impugning his own manhood to make people laugh. I guess I liked hanging out with him because he's all the things I wish I was. Though I'd miss him a lot more if he were just like me.