Few can say what Robert Fries can about Antarctica: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

This summer, more than six decades after he spent 13 months at the South Pole, Fries handed the child-sized shirt, emblazoned with “Operation Deep Freeze,” to Isaac King. The 88-year-old retired Anderson University astronomy and physics professor, and King, a 24-year-old filmmaker from Landrum, met at a gas station in Anderson. King had purchased the T-shirt from Fries on Facebook Marketplace.

Then King got the real treasure — 1,400 feet of film Fries shot documenting his polar experiences in 1962 and ’63.

“We got to talking, and the subject of the film came up,” said Fries, whose last name is pronounced like the name of the operation. “I don’t know why I mentioned it, but I did. And then it turn

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