I ate lunch today with my father and his gang of Spartanburg High School graduates from the 1950’s. They have been eating lunch every Wednesday for the past two years at the world famous Beacon Drive In.
One Spartanburg graduate, Phillip Frey, shown in the picture with me, worked on the ice breaker Atka in 1957-1958. This was during the last IGY, International Geophysical Year.
Meeting at the Beacon Drive In
So the current 2007-2008 IPY represents a fifty year anniversary from the last IGY. His ship did work in the Arctic and the Antarctic. He once got to see Sir Edmund Hillary, who boarded Mr. Frey’s ship from a New Zealand ice breaker. For those who don’t know, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer, Tenzing Norgay, were the first to reach the summit of Mt. Everest and did so on May 29, 1953.
The picture below shows one side of the IGY sterling silver coin that Philip Frey brought along with him to lunch today. Mr. Frey remembers being fascinated with the penguins of Antarctica and the polar bears of the Arctic.
"Operation Deepfreeze II"
"57 Antarctica 58"