Uber Pythagoras + President Garfield: Out Of Focus

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Above  chalkboard,

Pythagoras (L) and (partially) James Garfield (R)

The out-of-focus look is by design:
to obscure identity of those beneath the images
of a pair of my math heroes. 

The crouching boy was best known for his smile
and inability to do classwork.

He helped the girls exercise their freedoms:
the Freedom to be distracted
+
the Freedom to gossip 
while the teacher
might as well have been talking
to paper cuts of Pythagoras and Garfield.

All I really remember about Smiley is his uncorruptible grade.
"A rock-solid  F" was coded, amongst my colleagues,
as RSF. We knew them well.

Within three years of this 1997 classroom photo,
Smiley got two of the girls pregnant.

Then he disappeared.

By 2015, it is a sure thing that he has fathered
six children by as many different girls.

But doesn't he have a beautiful smile?   

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