this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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I take it I'm the first one to read the title entirely instead of spitting a fun fact. I live and work up in the rocky mountains, and ski patrol tends to be the most interesting people out there. They're paramedics, but because you can't just grab a paramedic out of the ambulance roller coaster tycoon style and simply drop them in the middle of the woods on the side of the mountain they're also some of the best skiers out there. So these are people with both medical and extreme sports training.
That's incredible. What training do they receive?
Wilderness first aid at a minimum but I've heard them talk about how pay goes up the more certifications you get as far as medical goes. The initial ski trial from what I've heard is pretty rough (I've only done the ski trial for lift operations which consists of doing your morning commute in the dark with flashlights without dying).
That sounds wild.
Well my interesting person is my friend who has 39 children. 38 are adopted.
Damn. Even if they gave birth to all of them (assuming it's a woman), they would still only be 8th on the world record list. Although some of the claims on the list are not completely verified due to happening hundreds of years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most_children
She adopted all but one, but I'm sure for adopted kids she's set a record for something. Most single parent adoptions maybe.
Whoa! That is very interesting. I've got so many questions. How old are they? Are they very wealthy? Large house/property? Age range of the kids? I'm assuming this is over an extended period, not all at the same time, but either way that takes dedication.
She's in her sixties now, all the kids are adults. She spent 48 years parenting. She is a retired librarian and lives on her retirement check and occasionally free lunch programs, she raised them all on a shoestring, yard sales and beans and rice.. She built a very large house on her parents rural property that she raised them all in. There is about 38 years between the oldest and youngest. The most she ever had at home at one time was 30 (which is still a hell of a lot). She adopted seven large groups of siblings, and most of them are undocumented immigrant kids who ended up in foster care. She is a single parent!
She had a blog for a while where she talked about daily life with the kids, but it wasn't some influencer large family mommy thing, it was the blog of a little old southern lady who liked to talk about how her turnips were doing that year and how the Braves sucked. She talked a lot about her kids trauma and the challenge of raising them. I'd say about three quarters of them have done fairly well, but she openly states that she made no more difference than a foster home would have for some of her kids because they have such serious trauma.
She has over 100 grandchildren!
I had an uncle that did that for years. In the summer he worked in silver mines and in the winter he worked ski patrol. He eventually quit because in his words, "I got tired of risking my neck for dumb rich guys who couldn't stay where they were supposed to."
He was also a cliff diver and lived in an honest to God log cabin. I spent a summer with him once where I had to chop all of his firewood for the winter.
The best memory I have is when he spilt his beer all over the living room and my aunt walks in and goes, "It smells like a Turkish brothel in here." My uncle completely straight faced answered, "no it doesn't." Well it turns out he spent some time in a Turkish brothel in the 70s as well.
I love talking to those guys on the lifts. Many of them are characters. Mad respect to all ski patrollers out there, I appreciate you every time I see you on the slopes!