Camarillo was a still small town when I grew up here. The Los Altos Junior High School class of 1970 was made up of only a couple hundred students and we all knew each others name. Yet even in a small town there's plenty of trouble an undisciplined thirteen year old boy can get into, and I had gotten pretty good at finding that trouble.

Les Meredith was the Boys' Vice Principal at Los Altos. By the time I was in the eighth grade he had gotten to know me very well, probably better than he would have liked. Looking back on that time I realize he was very good at his job. He was a very intelligent and patient man who obviously had spent a lot of time studying the thought process of the adolescent mind. Like most teenagers, I thought I was smarter than any adult and could get away with just about anything I wanted to do. Like most of the students I figured I was always one step ahead of ol' "Mr. Meredith", when in reality the exact opposite was true. For some reason Les always knew who was taping mirrors to their shoes and when to get close enough to you to see if your shirt smelled of cigarette smoke or your breath smelled like Sin-Sin.

The one thing that still strikes me as funny is that Les almost always knew when I was lying, which was just about every time I ended up in his office, but he also recognized the truth when he heard it. Les taught me early on that the punishment for lying was usually worse than the punishment for whatever rule violation I had committed, but I was slow in learning this lesson.

One day in wood shop my friend Terry thought it would be a great idea to pour Elmers' Glue in all the nail bins. I also thought this was an excellent way to kill the last fifteen minutes of class and urged him to do it. The next day Les called me into his office out of first period and asked me who had poured the glue in the nail bins. Not if I knew who did it, or if I did it, but....who did it. I remember thinking that he had no way of knowing. He's guessing. How would he know? So I gave him my standard answer, "Mr. Meredith, I have no idea who would do such a terrible thing". Terry and I got the same punishment, two weeks detention.

Les also had an uncanny knack of making the punishment fit the act. One time a group of students, of which I was one, was making fun of one of the teachers where we knew she could hear us. Les overheard this conversation and made us apologize to the teacher and clean the teachers classroom after school under the teachers supervision.

The ultimate punishment was the Board of Education. This is what Les called the paddle that sat in the corner of his office behind his desk. He used it sparingly but firmly. He knew that the humiliation and dread of the paddle were worse than the actual swatting, and he used this knowledge wisely. His tall, thin build concealed his physical strength but the sting of the paddle was always a lasting reminder of who was in charge.

The most amazing thing I find as I reflect on those years is how Les always had the right answer for any problem and handled every situation with calm and dignity. I believe he sincerely cared about each and every student who ever walked through the doors of Los Altos Junior High. He was far more to the students than just an authority figure or a disciplinarian. He had a demeanor that always convayed the message that he liked and respected every student and wanted the best for them. He would do whatever was necessary to help any of the students and solve any problem that he came across. He was our best friend and we didn't even know it.

One of Les' greatest gifts was the ability to instill confidence in the students. He had a way of making you feel that any problem could be worked out and that everything was going to be fine once the problem was settled. He also had a way of getting you to learn something without even realizing you were being taught a lesson. I believe this is the ability that makes a great teacher.

As we tread our way through life we meet a lot of people. Some have an influence on our lives, most do not. Very few people have both the opportunity and the ability to make a significant difference in the lives of people they encounter. Les had both of these blessings and used them to the fullest measure. There is an old saying, "Life forces a little wisdom upon us every day, even if we don't want it". Les Meredith had a way of making those moments as positive and as painless as possible.

- Johnny