By Oisin Sweeney • Published: 06 Feb 2021 • 7:09
The wallet's owner was "blown away" to be reunited with the memento - Image Source: Pixabay
A RETIRED meteorologist who lost his wallet while working in Antarctica in the 1960s has had his precious memento returned after more than five decades.
Paul Grisham, a 91-year-old retiree living in southern California, was amazed when he was reunited with a wallet he lost during a 1960s research trip to Antarctica.
The Arizona-native joined the US Navy in 1948 where he was trained as a weather technician and later a civilian meteorologist. In the early 1960s, he reluctantly spent months away from his wife and two children to partake in Operation Deep Freeze, a US research expedition to Antarctica.
While stationed at the McMurdo base on Ross Island, he lost his wallet. It was subsequently found in 2014 behind a locker as the building prepared for demolition, beginning a long journey for internet sleuths to reunite the wallet with its owner.
The wallet contained Grisham’s preserved Navy ID, driver’s license, a Cold-War era pocket guide to surviving nuclear fallout, a beer ration card, and other mementos of his career and the times he lived in. The pensioner told AP that he was “blown away” by the rediscovery of his long lost wallet, and thanked the volunteers that tracked him down to return it.
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Oisin is an Irish writer based in Seville, the sunny capital of Andalucia. After starting his working life as a bookseller, he moved into journalism and cut his teeth as a reporter at one of Ireland's biggest news websites. Since joining Euro Weekly News in November, he has enjoyed covering the latest stories from Seville, Spain and further afield - with special interests in crime, cybersecurity, and European politics. Anyone who can pronounce his name first try gets a free cerveza...
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