California Man Reunited With Wallet He Lost in Antarctica Over 50 Years Ago
On 2/11/21 at 7:57 AM EST
Paul Grisham misplaced the wallet in 1968 during a 13-month placement on the remote continent.
Decades later, it was recovered from behind a locker in a building due to be demolished at the U.S. research base McMurdo Station and has recently been returned to Grisham.
Inside was his driver s license, Navy I.D. and a recipe for the coffee liquor Kahlua.
Grisham, from San Diego, also found a beer ration punch card and receipts for money orders sent to his wife.
Most eerie of all was a card giving instructions on what people stationed at McMurdo should do in the case of an atomic, biological or chemical weapons attack.
The wallet contained his Navy ID card, driver license, a pocket reference card on what to do during atomic, biological and chemical attack, a beer ration punch card, a tax withholding statement and receipts for money orders sent to his wife.
Grisham, who was raised in Douglas, Arizona, enlisted in the Navy in 1948. He became a weather technician and then a weather forecaster.
He was assigned to Antarctica as part of “Operation Deep Freeze,” which supported civilian scientists, and shipped out to the frozen continent in October 1967. At the time, he was in his 30s and married with two toddlers.
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
At their home in San Carlos on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021, in San Diego, Calif., Paul Grisham and his wife Carole Salazar look over his wallet and the items that were inside when he lost the wallet back 1968. Back in 1968, Navy Lt. JG Paul Grisham spent a year stationed in Antarctica as a meteorologist. When he returned to California after 13 months on The Ice, as he calls it, his wallet had disappeared. A couple weeks ago, his wallet was found in a building being torn down at McMurdo Station, Antarctica and recently returned back to him. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune/TNS)