Category: random

Yes, I know about the podcast Tanis, and no, I do not know what it is about and nor do I intend to listen to find out. Because of the podcast, I had to double-check whether Where is Tanis? was written by someone else or not.

So far, Jack Parson does appear to be the author.

Now, for the second person in my most recent bit of research: Edgar Rice Burroughs. Aside from being in the U.S. Army, stationed in Arizona, and later owning part of a small mining operation in Idaho, there seems to be no direct connection between him and Parsons.

Nor is there a direct connection to Dr. W. H. Ballou, save for what Ryan Harvey, writes in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Pellucidar Saga: Tarzan at the Earth’s Core:

“The dyor, [is] a Stegosaurus that can glide through the air by flattening its backplates. This isn’t entirely Burroughs’s whacked-out creation: Dr. W. H. Ballou floated the idea in a Utah newspaper article in 1920. Burroughs clipped unusual news stories for ideas, and he probably pulled this from his dinosaur file one day and went with it.”

Pellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth invented by Burroughs.

So, let’s look once again at Parsons and other people that spent time at his mansion in Pasadena.

Enter sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein, who lived at Parsons home for a time. It is Heinlein who connects us to Burroughs.

He did not complete the first draft of The Number of the Beast, as Alan Brown points out in Long-Lost Treasure: The Pursuit of the Pankera vs. The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein:

“No one knows exactly why Heinlein abandoned the original version of his book, although that version draws heavily on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and E. E. “Doc” Smith, and there may have been difficulties in gaining the rights to use those settings.”

A lesser-known science fiction writer Smith lived in Idaho as a child and young man. Following his retirement as a chemical engineer, he split his time between Florida and Seaside, Oregon.

It is Seaside that my Uncle Orville first retired to before he and Aunt Francis moved to Salem. It gets even stranger.

In several interviews, Charles Manson said many of his ideas came from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger In A Strange Land. Mansion even claimed to be a combination of the characters Valentine Michael Smith and Jubal Harshaw.

Jubal means father of all, a role Manson assumed. He also named his son Valentine Michael.

Manson also found influence in Dianetics and something called the Process, founded by Robert and Maryanne DeGrimston in London in 1963 as an offshoot of Scientology.

Rabbit hole my ass…

My Cousin Elmo says, “I jus’ figured out that ghosts are people who died while trying to fold a fitted sheet.”

Finn and I were celebrating our final night of summer freedom at the line shack. Earlier in the day, we had helped count and load all the cattle the two of us had gathered over the last two and a half months.

“George,” Finn said, “I’m glad you held back on the good stuff.”

He lifted his cup, half full of whiskey, in salute. He then downed it in a single gulp. I poured him some more.

“Wonder what happened to old Nameless,” I said as I tipped my glass back.

Nameless was a large black bull, well known for his nasty temper. We couldn’t find him anywhere in our searching for the nearly wild cows that we’d driven into our stock pens in the many weeks we’d been working together.

“Probably got kilt by a mountain lion or something,” Fin answered. “After all he was pretty old as I understand it.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “More than likely he is a ghost out roaming around looking for someone to run over or something.”

“Now, don’t you go telling any spook-stories to me,” Finn demanded. “You remember that last one you told me. Nearly had a heart attack when you howled like a dog while I was in the outhouse.”

We laughed as we enjoyed another splash of whiskey.

“Won’t be trying to scare you tonight,” I said. “Not with old Nameless unaccounted for.”

“Stop it, damn you,” Finn shouted. “Not another word about ghosts, spirits or spooks or anything of the sort.”

“Okay,” I answered, “Want another snort of spirit?”

Finn laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair. I poured him another couple of ounces.

Once finished with that, he got up and went outside, announcing, “You only rent whiskey.”

I stayed seated, worried that the room might spin too fast for my balance should I stand up.

That’s when I heard a particular sound, heavy breathing, and a solid thump. I got up despite my possible intoxication and went to the cabin door.

Intoxicated or not, I recognized Nameless right away as he stood horns pointed at me. I quickly slammed the door.

No sooner had I closed it than the door and frame shattered as if in an explosion. Nameless had entered, and I sought my escape through the glass window above our washbasin.

As Nameless trashed the cabin, I sprinted around the front and downhill to the outhouse. As I tried to open the door, I heard Nameless racing behind me.

“Open the damned door,” I cried.

“Find your own spot to hide,” Finn returned.

The bull was nearly on me as I ran around the outhouse twice before deciding to climb on top of it. I watched in relative safety as Nameless disappeared into the darkness.

As I contemplated getting down and running up to the shack, I heard the brute come racing back. I had hardly focused on its black silhouette charging from the dark before slamming into the side of the outhouse, scattering boards, magazines, and I supposed, Finn.

The sun was coming up when I finally felt brave enough to lift my head and look around. I was stiff and sore from my tumble, and it was made worse from having played dead on the ground all night.

I could see neither Nameless nor Finn, so I crawled to my knees.

“Finn?” I called.

“Here,” he hollered back.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Do dandy,” he said. “You?”

“I’m still put together,” I answered. “Where are you?”

“In the shitter,” he said.

“No, you’re not, its spread all to hell and back,” I returned.

“Nope,” Finn said, “I’m definately in the shitter.”

Crawling, I made my way to the floor of what had been the outhouse. I looked in the privy hole and saw Finn looking back at me.

“How in the hell did you end up there?” I asked.

“When that freight train hit,” he explained, “It threw me in the air, and when I came down, I landed straight-legged in this here shit.”

As I started to laugh, I heard a sound from behind me that left my blood cold then I felt the ground tremble through my hands. Without hesitation, I jumped in the hole next to Finn.

Soon a face peered over the edge of the privy hole. It was McDaniels who had come back to help us pack out.

He pushed his lid back and scratched his forehead before exclaiming, “Boys, I don’t even want to know how badly you two tied it on last night.”

My Cousin Elmo says, “Before sitting on the floor, have a plan on how to get off the floor.”

Their day began as it always had, sunny and bright. By late noon though, that brightness had given way to a heavy gloom, dark clouds, thundershowers, and cold.

As few had paid note to its beginning, fewer paid heed to its ending. The Morning God has passed away, and now general darkness set in.

Still, the rains came as night settled on the land, and those that knew retired to their chambers in prayer and slumber.

Once again, their day began as it always had. A new Morning God showed its magnificent face on them, though they never took note.

Usually, when researching, one tends to narrow down sources. However, I found two more persons of interest and must cover each as each relates to Tanis.

I’m starting with John T. Reid.

Reid was a mining engineer who grew up in Lovelock, Nevada. Not only did he find the petrified shoe print, but he also directed archeologists to the Lovelock Cave, where, in 1924, they unearthed several “redheaded giants.”

In the book “Life Among the Piutes, Their Wrongs and Claims,” Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins writes that these redheaded tule-eaters, or Si-te-cah, often ate their captives.

She also writes about a generational shirt handed down to her with red Si-te-cah hair woven into it. What became of that shirt is unknown.

In an article by Dorothy P. Dansie, titled “John T. Reid’s Case for the Redheaded Giants,” and published in the Fall 1975 issue of the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, she writes:

“In 1929, Reid accompanied by John A. Runner, government surveyor working out of Lovelock, visited the University of California Archeology Building and asked to see the Lovelock Cave display.”

There are a couple of things worth unpacking in this narrative.

Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard (of Scientology fame) worked what they called “sex majik,” to call down an ancient redheaded Babylonian goddess to earth. Apparently, it worked.

From Martin Chalakowski’s October 2017 article, “The Rocketeer, the Scientologist, and the Lady in Between:” he writes, “A red-haired woman did knock on Parsons’ door, in the form of Marjorie Cameron, an aspiring actress, a beauty to behold and, interestingly, a Hubbard acquaintance.”

The other goes back to the original story, “Where is Tanis?” by Jack Parsons, who writes of a “runner.” Interestingly, in 1929, Reid is accompanied by a name whose last name is Runner.

It might seem like a stretch now, but it gets stranger.

After speaking with a Shoshoni elder about Tanis, she talked with a Paiute elder. Together, they put me on to the name Dr. W.H. Ballou.

According to The Journal of Wild Mushrooms, William Hosea Ballou was no stranger to incorrect opinions. In his 2007 article, Leon Shernoff further writes:

“Of his cockamamie opinions that made it into print, perhaps the one that got the most exposure was his notion that Stegosaurus used the plates along its spine to fly, an idea that was picked up by Edgar Rice Burroughs for his book At the Earth’s Core, where the heroes encounter a number of dinosaurs, including a flying Stegosaurus.”

Ballou also wrote an article that appeared in the American Weekly section of the New York Sunday American on October 8, 1922., titled, “Mystery of the Petrified: Shoe Sole 5,000,000 Years Old.”

“Some time ago, while he was prospecting for fossils in Nevada, John T. Reid, a distinguished mining engineer, and geologist stopped suddenly and looked down in utter bewilderment and amazement at a rock near his feet. For there, a part of the rock itself was what seemed to be a human footprint!

Closer inspection showed that it was not a mark of a naked foot but was, apparently, a shoe sole that had been turned into stone. The forepart was missing.

But there was the outline of at least two-thirds of it, and around this outline ran a well-defined sewn thread which had, it appeared, attached the welt to the sole. Further on was another line of sewing, and in the center, where the foot would have rested had the object really been a shoe sole, there was an indentation, exactly such as would have been made by the bone of the heel rubbing upon and wearing down the material of which the sole had been made.

Thus was found a fossil which is the foremost mystery of science today. For the rock in which it was found is at least 5 million years old.”

Geologists inspected and said the print was authentic and that the rock was from the Triassic Period (205-250 million years ago). They could even see the twisted threads of stitching along the outer edge of the sole.

Discovered in Fisher Canyon, Pershing County, Nevada, the fossilized imprint was lost, and its present location is unknown.

Is this a Runner or a Seeker? Maybe John T. Reid or Edgar Rice Burroughs is the key to unlocking this mystery.

My Cousin Elmo says, “I used to talk to myself all the time, but we had a fight, so we hardly speak anymore.”

A friend, who knows I enjoy pulp literature and history, sent me this short story, “Where is Tanis?” by Jack Parsons. She also knows that my Uncle Orville Harrison worked on the Saturn V rocket project and knew Parsons.

Uncle Orville worked in the Spanish Springs area of Nevada during the rocket testing phase. I live only a few miles from where they conducted those tests.

I believe there is no such thing as “coincidence.”

A quick check of the fabulously unreliable Wikipedia shows that Tanis, a Greek name, is a real place. In ancient Egypt, Tanis was ḏꜥn.t, and in the bible, called Zoan. Having read and reread the story, which seems to be a mish-mash of Star Wars anthology, The Maze Runner, and a touch of Siddhartha, I cannot help but wonder: what is Tanis?

Do I chase it down the rabbit hole that I suspect Tanis to be or be satisfied to call it that place between reality and fantasy?

My Cousin Elmo says, “The inventor of ‘auto-correct’ has died. Their funeral is tomato.”