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Paul Grisham with the identification card he had in 1967 when he was working as a meteorologist for the United States Navy at the South Pole. Photo: Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune
The American lost his wallet at the South Pole in 1968. Now he has reappeared, with proof that he had won at poker against the other guys at the weather station!
Paul Grisham, now 91, traveled to Antarctica in October 1967 to work as a meteorologist for the United States Navy.
Grisham’s job was to report the weather from a science station and airstrip at Rossøya, which is located in the Ross Sea off the coast of Victoria Land.
Just over a year later, he finished his mission on the frozen continent and was able to return home to his family in sunny California. But something important was missing from the luggage, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Wallet!
The wallet contained many interesting things, but no money. Photo: Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune
But on Saturday, Grisham recovered his long-lost wallet, which turned up in connection with demolition work at the base where he had worked 53 years earlier. It arrived in the mail to the 91-year-old man after some persistent (much) later colleagues had spent a week finding the owner.
– I didn’t believe my own eyes, says Grisham, who lives in San Carlos with his wife. There are many who have worked to find me, he told the newspaper.
So what did the wallet contain? And was there any money left?
The wallet contained a card with rules on how to behave in the event of a nuclear attack. Photo: Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune
Poker receipts
According to the Union Tribune, there was no money in his wallet. Because there was nothing to buy there on the base in 1967. However, it contained, among other things, Navy identification cards, driver’s licenses, a tax card, and a homemade Kahlua prescription.
Those who worked at the base called themselves “Ice Rats” (ice rats) and obviously had fun with beer and card games in the evenings, because in his wallet there were also beer coupons and poker winnings receipts that he had won and sent his wife.
At that time there was a cold war and a very tense relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States and there was a real fear of a nuclear war between the Americans. The wallet also contained a card with detailed instructions on what to do in the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons attack.
Grisham told the Union-Tribune that it was difficult to understand how cold and remote Antarctica experienced when working there. He says one of the joys of a Dry Martini after work and one call a week to his wife on the shortwave transmitter. He worked in the Navy his entire career until he retired in 1977.
