Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"The boy is master of nothing.
The man is master of nothing but himself."

"Boys are born. Men are made."

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"The disappointment you feel when you fail to achieve ambitious goals
is better than the disappointment you are when you fail to reach for any."

Dumpster Cleaning Day

Believe it or not, the Swiss even keep their dumpsters clean.

To the right, you'll see a picture of the trash collector pressure spraying out one of the dumpsters. I don't pay close attention, but I think they do this about once a quarter.

One or two men will come out with their dump truck and spend about 45-60min hosing and scrubbing out the half a dozen or so dumpsters located around the cul-de-sac in front of our building.

All you have to do to appreciate the degree of order and cleanliness in Switzerland is to cross the border into Italy, France, or Germany. I love those countries, but nobody can match the Swiss in this regard.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"Every man receives from himself exactly as much, or as little, as he is willing to accept
and can expect no more from his brother."

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"I play for the fun of it. And winning is fun."

Well-meaning adults say healthy children should learn to play games, not to win, but for the sheer fun of it. Healthy children say winning is fun.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"Animals are admired for the burdens they can bear;
men for the manner in which they bear them."

The Cows Came Home

One of the many small things we love about living in Switzerland is how, with the exception of large city centers, land use is integrated with a lot of attention dedicated to preserving natural green space. Even the yards are often what I call the 'cultivated wild' look with lots of tall grasses and wild flowers.

Right behind our apartment building is a cow pasture which slopes down to a wooded stream. Cows aren't there all year round - the local farmer rotates them from pasture to pasture and, presumably, off to the butcher when they've reached sufficient size. We were delighted to discover 6 new neighbors had been rotated into our pasture this morning.

About two block away, not far from our tram stop, there is a horse pasture and a garden store with rabbit pens outside. A few blocks away near our local hospital is a goat pen we occasionally visit with carrot treats. Two blocks in the other direction is a field with some sheep. And so on.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wit & Wisdom

"Photographing children is like fishing -
the ones you catch never measure up to the ones that got away."

Things that make you go Hmm...

A common saying goes, "That's easier said than done". I wonder if it ever works the other way around.

Is there anything "that's easier done than said"?

I considered exfoliate, impregnate, gesticulate, and many other -ates, but they all involve more work in the performance than in the pronunciation.

Perhaps, in certain cases for certain people, expropriate could be harder to say than to do.

Hmm. I wonder. . .

Swiss Holiday... Auffahrt

Some German words sound like they mean something very different to Anglo listeners. Today, we celebrate Auffahrt!

Auffahrt, which Babelfish translates literally as "ramp", actually refers to Ascension Day. This compound word is a fusion of two simple German words, auf, meaning 'up' in this context and fahrt, meaning 'journey' or 'trip'. Literally, "the up journey".

Unlike most religious - that is, of course, to say Christian - holidays in Switzerland, a single day is sufficient for a proper celebration. The observation of Auffahrt, the bodily Ascension of the resurrected Christ up to heaven, only involves schools and businesses being closed today (Thursday). Life returns to normal tomorrow.

Easter, on the other hand, can come as quite an inconvenient surprise to unprepared ex-pats. A day, even a weekend, is nowhere near enough time to celebrate Easter. Many schools & businesses close early on Wednesday afternoon and remain closed through the following Monday. If you failed to prepare by Wed morning with enough groceries to last a week, you'll have to tighten your belt until the following Tuesday.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wisdom

"Two journeys that begin at the same origin and arrive at the same destination
are not be the same journey if they follow different paths.
One's path is one's purview."

Two books which start and end with the exact same word can recount completely unique, otherwise unrelated stories.

Every one of us is born and every one of us will die. Our difference, our uniqueness, comes in between - in the way we choose to live our lives, the paths we choose to follow, and the stories we leave behind.

One's life is a matter of one's choices. And a choice is an instantaneous experience that can be changed in the very next instant, thereby, changing one's life.

Your path is your purview. Your life is your choice.

Out of the mouths of babes...

Children are so innocent, at least for awhile. Their limited understanding of the world is actually one of their many endearing qualities.

I was organizing and backing-up the many gigabytes of digital photos we've taken over the last five years when Aidan, bored with whatever he had been doing, sidled up beside me, stared at the screen of photos for a second, and asked to sit on my lap to watch what I was doing.

I scrolled past some thumbnail photos of me in a suit from when I worked in real estate and...

"Go back, Daddy! Was that when you were 'really big'?" he asked
I responded, "Do you mean when I was a Realtor? Yes."
Unsatisfied with my cryptic answer, he persisted "What's a 'tor', Daddy?"
"Realtor. It's one whole word, Realtor, and it means I was a salesman."
"Oh, wow! Did you have to 'sail' all day long, Daddy?"

Heh. I could've answered many ways, but just chuckled instead and told him it was nothing all that exciting. He lost interest and left to find some toy to manipulate or play make-believe with, possibly still believing I used to be a sailor.

The ripple effect

Hello everyone, and Happy Mother's Day! Here's to all of our mothers. You certainly don't realize the time and energy that your mother gave to you, especially during those labor intensive first few years, until you have wee ones of your own, now do you? Thanks, Mom!

Tonight as I was tucking Asher into bed (still the crib -- can he stay in there forever please?), I asked him if I could hold him like a baby. He said yes. I told him how he was the #2 baby to come out of my belly (to which he exclaimed "ya!"), how he drank my milk ("ya!") and how very much I love him ("ya!"). He still has somewhat of a baby face, even at 2 years old, whereas Aidan's has already changed into a definite little-boy configuration. Asher's already so big that I can hardly hold him in my arms "like a baby," but I relish in every last hug and snuggle I get from these 2 boys, as I know it won't be too long before they're too "big" for such cuddles (let's hope that doesn't happen until they're at least 13).

Speaking of "big," let's do a little photo retrospective of Stephanie's pregnancy moments and accounting of good friends that happened to be gestating and/or lactating at the same time...



Here I am with Gwendolyn Tedder, FSU college classmate of yore and long time friend, who now lives in Portland, Maine. Seth Zachary Tedder sprung forth into this world in October 2005, just 3 months after I had Aidan Zane.

Coincidentally, later on when I had our #2 little man Asher Maxwell, Gwen and her husband Doug had just 3 months earlier delivered their second son -- James Logan.

When in Springfield, IL, I met Victoria Kennedy at the local La Leche League meeting whilst she was "with child," carrying a certain Miss Catherine Elizabeth. Pictured here, we were [heavy with pregnancy], carrying our #2 babies. James Michael was born just 3 days after Asher.


You never can tell in life just whose life you may touch, and the ripple effect it may have. While in residency, my fellow resident Greg Babcock and his wife were expecting their first child.

Barbara had baby Lauren, and was a proud breasfeeding mom. I was very intrigued by her nursing relationship, since I hadn't really ever been around a nursing mom. It seemed so natural, so discreet, such a connection, in more ways than the obvious, so....right! Her mom had been a La Leche League leader, and she had thus been to meetings with her mom as a young girl, and had heard the breastfeeding mantra "breast is best" her whole life. It was inspiring to be around someone who held so steadfast in her mission to exclusively breastfeed. Later on she would "wow" us all when she exclusively breastfed their subsequent twins, Audrey and Corbin.


So, when I was pregnant with Aidan, I decided that I would give it a whirl, when the time came. After that first difficult night at home, trying to feed a baby that didn't like to open his mouth very wide, I went to my first La Leche league meeting the very next morning. And the rest is history.


I would like to say a big thank you now, this Mother's Day, to Barbara Babcock, for her example, her advice and her friendship, during those early days of childbearing and breastfeeding.


And, the ripple effect continues, in the times that I have shared some advice or anectdotes from La Leche league learnings and personal experience, to other new moms. And in the friends that I have met through La Leche League alone.

Happy Mothers Day, Moms! I am thinking of all of you.

--Stephanie

Swope Genealogy back to Colonial Days

Jennifer Hodge (Swope), my cousin, recently had some genealogy research done on our line of Swopes in the United States and tracked it back 7 generations to our great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Jacob Schoap, born in Germany just two years before the outbreak of the American Revolution who emigrated to the territory that would later become the state of Ohio. Many thanks to Jenny for sharing this information. I will do my best to interpret the records and recount history accurately, but I apologize for any mistakes.

• Jacob Swope (b. 06-May-1774) was a German immigrant, born Jacob Schoap, who made his way to Seneca, Ohio to become a farmer. He married Dorothea Weller (b. 09-Dec-1789) from Frederic County, Virginia, who at 15 years his junior, was nearly young enough to be his daughter. Beginning in 1809, when he was 35 and she was 20, they had the first of 13 children. Their fourth child, Henry, was born in 1813, when Jacob was 39. Their last arrived in 1833 when Dorothea was 44 and Jacob was 59! Perhaps it was his young wife or maybe it was the result of having children so late in life, but something kept him young at heart for Jacob lived to be 86 years old.
• Henry Swope (b. 13-Sep-1813) continued living in Ohio and, in 1839, broke tradition with his father to marry a woman his own age, Elizabeth Williams (b. 11-June-1817), who was only four years younger than himself. Not wanting to wait the typical 9-10 months for gestation, Elizabeth gave birth to John, the first of their 8 children, just four months after their nuptials. Henry lived 76 years.
• John R Swope (b. 10-Jun-1839) was born in the town of Jackson in Seneca County, Ohio. He continued the practice of marrying someone his own age and, in 1861, the first year of the Civil War, he wedded Mary Ann Nederhouser (b. 10-Sep-1842) from near Akron, OH. John would have been 21 at the outbreak of the Civil War, but I have no information on whether or not he participated. It is worth noting that Ohio remained loyal to the Union, so if John did participate, it's safe to assume the same of him. According to one record, his second child was born only a few months after the end of the Civil War, over a year after according to another. But because his first child was born in the middle of that conflict, it is possible he did not participate at all. Public records conflict a bit. In fact, they suggest that John married twice to women of virtually identical names & age who both bore John sons, in consecutive years, who also shared the same name. I will assume John's two wives and two sons are, in fact, one and the same, because such a coincidence is just too hard to believe. It is possible that Mary Ann’s last name was spelled Neiderhouser, and it appears the first of their two children arrived two years after their wedding. Another two years later, Jacob H was born in 1865 (1866 according to another record). John lived 62 years and was buried in Fostoria, OH.
• Jacob H Swope (b. 30-Jul-1865) arrived on the scene just five years after the death of his namesake, the pre-Revolutionary, cradle-robbing great-grandfather, with whom he shared longevity. Jacob may have been the one to relocate to Michigan, as records show he was buried there in 1953 at the age of 88. But I skipped ahead. Jacob H married Ida Millhime (b. 1869) some time before he died and, presumably, before they had at least two children. Curiously, the public records I saw don't show that any of their children were named Howard, but I've been told they brought my great-grandfather into the world in 1892, when Jacob was 27 and Ida was 23.
• Howard Swope (b. 1892), my great-grandfather, was born in Ohio, was a veteran of the first World War, and worked as a laborer in a Michigan shipyard for a time. He lived in Trenton, a suburb of Detroit with his wife, Lillian Stuck, and children. I never met my great-grandfather and, if I remember the stories correctly, I think Howard may have gone on to live a bit of a troubled life. The story goes that he accidentally killed his first wife, my great-grandmother, one night when he mistook her for a burglar. Howard changed his last name to Adams, possibly to avoid legal detection and left the state and his family. Whatever the particulars of his life, he did me and my family a great service by fathering Russell Swope in 1923.
• Russell H Swope (b. 09-Nov-1923), my grandfather, was born in Michigan, I believe in Trenton. I knew my grandfather to be a kind and hard-working man. He served in World War II and, after his return from service, married Doris Grote (b. 1927), the daughter of Ruth and George. Together, my grandparents had 6 children in Michigan, the third being my father, Randy and the last of whom came as an unexpected blessing when Russell was 45 and Doris was 40, only a few months before the birth of their first grandchild. They eventually relocated to Pinellas county, Florida in the late 1970s. Most of their children followed, sooner or later, with their oldest two sons waiting to finish their careers in Michigan before both retiring to Florida. Russell worked several jobs over the course of his life, often holding down more than one at a time, including among other jobs factory work, farmer, property manager, and security guard. He smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day for most of his life, but after a very close call in the 90s, sustained unconscious for a week or so on a ventilator, gave them up entirely to live on another decade and celebrate the birth of at least one more grandchild and several more great-grandchildren. He passed away in 2005 at the age of 81.
• Randy C Swope (b. 06-May-1952), my father, born in Trenton MI is the third of five boys and one girl. He met his future wife, Sherry Westmoreland (b. 07-Apr-1952), in kindergarten, with whom he remained close friends throughout his school years. In Oct-1970, shortly after graduating from high school together, they married and he began work as a restaurant manager. I was born 13 months later, when they were both 19, the first of three boys in six years. Soon after, he was one of the last round of young men to be drafted by the US Army for service in the Vietnam War. Fortunately, the US withdrew from Vietnam before Randy was deployed, so he served his time in non-combat positions, including a few years in Wurzberg, Germany. Following his second hitch, he left the Army and relocated our family to Florida, to restart a career in restaurant management. After nearly 30 years of marriage, he left the family to pursue a different path for his life.

And then there is me, Matthew Swope, continuing a line of Americans, albeit living abroad, that stretches back to before America was a nation. My two wonderful sons, Aidan & Asher, assure that I will not be the last of my line.

An interesting irony is that our family name, Swope, is an Anglicized version of the German surname, Schwab (spelled variously), meaning Swabian or Swabish (effectively, “of Swabia”). Our ancestors, the Suebi, were a Germanic tribe dating back more than 2000 years to at least the time of the early Romans. Along with other Germanic “barbarian” tribes, they eventually helped to topple the Roman Empire and established supremacy over a swath of land that included much of present-day southern Germany and northern Switzerland, with some elements reaching as far as Spain & Portugal. The region of Swabia gave rise to both the great European ruling families of the Habsburgs, rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, & much of the rest of Europe, and the Hohenzollerns, who ruled as monarchs in Germany/Prussia through the unification of that country to the end of WWI.

After generations of my family in 'the new world', I now live on land that was likely once occupied by the ancient founders of my name and family line. Today, Swabia is the name of a region in the southern German state of Bavaria.

The Miracle of Floss

Today we mark a milestone in the Swiss Swope household. This is the first time we have ever, in all our days, reached the end of a spool of dental floss.

Do you know how hard that is? At the manufacturer, they pack like 12 miles of floss into each of those little dispensers! Actually, it's usually only 25-50m, but that's still a lot for such a small job. And don't start with the wise-cracks about some mouths being bigger than others. It's just a good thing floss doesn't have an expiration date.

I know what you're going to say, "But flossing is so good for your health. Why haven't you been doing it regularly enough to reach the end of a spool before now?"

Well, I don't know anything about butt flossing being good for your health, but I am well aware that dental flossing is good for your teeth and gums. But since our teeth are pretty good, Steph and I have both been pretty negligent in this regard.

That is, until our recent visits to the local Swiss dental tormentor (as recounted here). We now have this nifty new sonic vibro toothbrush that is probably rated for use in delicate archaeological digs. And we've also been flossing more regularly.

However, I must confess that Steph and I did not accomplish this feat entirely on our own. I came home from the gym one afternoon to find Steph on the phone and Asher sitting on the guest bed entwined in several feet of floss (still only a minute fraction of a typical spool) . He appeared to be trying to lace his feet to his overalls, but Steph said it kept him quiet while she talked and he wasn't hurting anything.

I suspect she was also curious to see if the floss would ever run out. It's one of those great mysteries, like how many licks does it take to reach the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop. I thought floss dispensers could be similar to the Biblical basket of endless fish & bread - every time you close the lid, the contents replenish themselves and never run out. That turned out not to be the case. But they do put so much floss on a single spool that, if Jesus had a typical container of floss back when he fed the 5000, every one of those people could have cleaned the bread and fish from between there teeth and that is no exaggeration.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wisdom

"In public, a cautious man says the same of his friends as his enemies - may they receive what they deserve." - Matthew Swope

Out of the mouths of babes...

It seems that Aidan inherited from me a mild sensitivity to citric acid. It's not an allergy, just a tendency to get a temporary stomach ache if we consume too much citric acid too fast.

When he woke up from a nap he asked me if he could have a cup of orange juice.

"Not on an empty stomach," I said. "Maybe you should eat something first."

"But, Daddy, my stomach won't be empty as soon as I drink the orange juice."

He's got me there.

Poor Matthew's Almanac of Popular Wisdom

Inspired by the witty wordplay, common sense sayings, and practical proverbs of Benjamin Franklin as published in his Poor Richard's Almanack during the waning days of colonial America, I hereby make my first entry in Poor Matt's Almanac of Popular Wisdom:

"It is far easier to keep up than to catch up."

This is generally true, concise, and easy to remember. Brilliant in its simplicity, don't you think? Now I just need to find a way to introduce it into common usage and wait for my royalties to pour in. People pay royalties for the use of popular aphorisms, don't they? No? Darn. There's another brilliant money-making scheme down the drain. Ah well. I thought it sounded clever and I hope you enjoy it.

Here's another entry:

"You either get up or you get left."

It doesn't have as much universal application, but it sounds nice rolling off the tongue when you're saying it to a lazy teenager or other habitually late person who commonly sleeps through alarms.

Yours truly,
Poor Matthew

"I can smell the ocean!"

We have a bunch of foam bath toys for the boys. When they're wet, they stick perfectly to porcelain, tile, and most other bathroom surfaces (the toys, not the boys). They are shaped like various aquatic life - fish, sharks, whales, and the like.

This evening, during their pre-bedtime bath, both boys were delirious and acting goofy. Steph took Asher out first to dry him off as I stood in the doorway sipping tea, awaiting my turn at bat when Aidan loudly proclaimed, "I can smell the ocean!" I looked up to see that he had a foam dolphin sticking halfway up his nose and I nearly shot tea out of my own.

Steph was busy drying Asher and asked him to repeat what he said, to which he responded by cocking his head to the left so all could behold his handiwork and proudly repeating, "I can smell the ocean!"

That creative, curious, mischievous boy brings me such joy! Is it any wonder that I'm such a proud papa?

We got a Wii!!

Stephanie's brother, Adam, just arrived from Florida for a visit and to meet with some European business partners. And he didn't come empty-handed.

Adam and Dave, a good friend of mine in Maryland, have had their eyes out for months trying to get a Wii for me. Dave finally got lucky and happened to walk into a store the very moment they put 5 new Wiis on the shelf. He was fourth in line and barely had time to ship it down to Adam before he flew over.

The Wii has proven to be a hit (literally) with the entire family. Aidan bowled a strike the first time he tried the Wii Sports game (intended for ages 7+) and seems to be a natural. He drops the ball nearly as often as he sends it down the lane, but when he lets it flies, he fires them straight, picking up frequent spares and strikes. Even Stephanie, who has only ever expressed marginal interest in two other video games for as long as I've known her, and my 55-year-old mother got into it.

Here is an intense picture of the two of them duking it out in Wii Sports boxing, yes Boxing, with the two-handed controller while Adam looks on and provides some tips on form & technique.

What a knock-out, huh?