4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL March 30, 2016
O PINION
LETTERS TO THE
EDITOR
Housing is needed
If we are to do anything about crime in our
community then we must address one of the
most fundamental causes of this — lack of hous-
ing. There are essentially zero rentals available.
Unless you have a very good (750-plus) credit
rating and are able to afford a good $1000 per
month, you WILL NOT qualify for a bank loan
to purchase a house.
What will this do to us in the future? It will lead
to more homelessness and a lot more crime.
What about our children? Should we vote for a
$39.5 million school bond issue only to see them
graduate into poverty?
A part time job at Wal-Mart is not a path to
home ownership. That won’t even cover rent
nowadays.
Charles Ames
Cottage Grove
CG budget priorities and
public input
I live outside the Cottage Grove city limits but
have been a reader of The Sentinel for 20 years.
Councilor Boone’s suggestion of public input
seems to be the right way to go — especially
compared to City Manager Meyers’ negativity
and Councilor Fleck’s arrogance. As I recall,
Cottage Grove water bills have previously pro-
vided the means for getting “ballots” out to the
people. Use them again; public input must be
considered.
Patricia Cathey
Cottage Grove
Offbeat Oregon History
Vaudeville Susie’s Riot; or, How Seriously Frontier
Oregon Took its Entertainment
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
I
n the winter of 1860, the little riv-
erside frontier town of Corvallis
was home to a young Vaudeville singer
named Susie Robinson.
Susie was the star attraction of the
Robinson Troupe of Vaudevillians, led
by her father. And “star” was the word
for Susie: Virtually the entire male pop-
ulation of the mid-Willamette Valley
was in dopey, hopeless love with her.
“Her form and voice were praised
by all, and her virtue extolled, while
her father gathered at the door of his
theater willing tributes enough, each
day, to have made her a golden crown,”
recalls pioneer George A. Waggoner in
his 1905 memoir. “Was ever a queen so
fortunately situated?”
Waggoner opines that, although
Susie’s talents would not have carried
her far on Broadway, she was by far the
best thing anyone in Corvallis had ever
seen.
“We know now that she was not a
great actress or singer,” Waggoner re-
marks, rather ungallantly; “and my
roving eyes have since discovered that
she was not a remarkable beauty, but at
that time many Oregon boys had never
seen the gay tinsels of stage costumes;
never been thrilled by the rich tones of
a cultivated voice, or seen a beautiful
woman poised on one toe, and she took
the frontier heart by storm.”
Had Susie Robinson and her father
stayed in Corvallis, she probably would
have had a long and rewarding career
in the up-valley Vaudeville theater
scene. But in the autumn of that year,
something very exciting happened near
a little creek way out in what is today
the state of Idaho: Gold — lots of gold
— was found in Orofi no Creek, a little
way east of Lewiston. Then, the fol-
lowing spring, a little party of prospec-
tors struck gold even closer to home
— on the banks of Griffi n Creek, just
a few miles from Baker City in Eastern
Oregon.
Torrents of eager miners departed
from Corvallis and other valley towns
that year, headed for the gold fi elds of
the east. Ramshackle, lawless towns
sprang up, with names like Auburn and
Granite. Eager young swains poured
eastward hoping for a lucky strike
— closely followed by the usual crowd
of gamblers, swindlers, robbers and
other hard characters looking for easy
marks.
And, of course, as towns sprang up
in the gold fi elds with populations in
the thousands composed entirely of
young, rich bachelors, it was clear that
the demand for a good Vaudeville the-
ater would be nearly unlimited.
How could the Robinson Troupe stay
in boring, depopulated Corvallis when
such a literally golden opportunity
beckoned?
And so the Corvallis Family Robin-
son packed up its things and followed
the eager miners over the mountains
and re-established itself just across the
Columbia River in Walla Walla, in what
was then Washington Territory.
Now, as you may recall, 1861 also
saw the outbreak of the American Civil
War. There was a frontier fort in Walla
Walla, and a couple of companies of
Army regulars had been stationed there.
And when the Robinson Theater set up
shop in town, word of Susie’s talents
and charms spread through the ranks of
the boys in blue like a bugle call. Soon
entire companies were pouring into the
theater, seating themselves by platoons
before the stage, fi lling the entire joint.
The local Walla Walla miners re-
sented this a great deal. They, too, were
thoroughly smitten with Susie and did
not intend to be kept from her shows
by these out-of-town interlopers. These
feelings were especially strong among
residents who were in sympathy with
the South — which was, at that time,
the majority of the town.
Tensions grew, but not much; fron-
tier miners weren’t big on impulse con-
trol. Instead, they simply showed up in
force and drove the soldiers out of the
theater one day, ordering them not to
return.
Now, these soldiers were men who
had enlisted to fi ght the Southern reb-
els. But instead of doing that, they
were now parked in a crappy fort in the
middle of nowhere, where their sole
purpose was to discourage the area’s
Native American tribes from getting
“uppity.” They were already a little sen-
sitive about being left out, especially as
word came in of battles and conquests
back east. They were in no humor to
let the humiliation heaped upon them
by these rowdy Rebel sympathizers go
unchallenged.
Accordingly, on the next perfor-
mance at the Robinson Theater, the
soldiers came prepared.
“They came fully armed, and de-
termined to insist upon their rights,”
recalls Waggoner — who was in the
crowd that day. “We all knew a fi ght
was coming, and divided our sympa-
thies according to our political opin-
ions.”
Members of both camps were able
to get into the theater before capacity
was reached, and harsh words were
exchanged. Susie, perhaps hoping to
defuse the brewing blow-up, came out
on stage and started to sing. This made
things better at fi rst … but then sud-
denly it made it all much, much worse:
“A hearty round of applause greeted
her, and she acknowledged it as a favor-
ite can, and commenced to sing,” Wag-
goner recalls. “One of the soldiers, who
had been drinking, continued to cheer,
and the marshal attempted to take him
from the room.”
The drunken soldier wheeled on the
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 11A
Should I avoid salt?
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
S
odium is an important min-
eral that is essential to the
body’s proper function. Howev-
er, processed foods, restaurant
foods and adding salt when we
cook results in dangerously high
amounts of sodium. The human
body can obtain all the sodium
it needs from natural foods,
which gen-
erally pro-
vide 500 to
1000 mg of
sodium per
day.
The
American
Heart Asso-
ciation rec-
ommends a
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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sodium intake of less than 1500
mg daily. Today, according to
the CDC, Americans typically
consume 3500 mg of sodium
per day, more than double the
AHA’s recommendation. Ideal-
ly we should consume less than
1000 mg of sodium daily.
How dangerous is this high
salt intake?
When salt intake is high, ex-
cess fl uid accumulates in the
circulatory system, exerting
pressure on the walls of blood
vessels, consequently raising
blood pressure and overworking
the heart. About one-third of
American adults have elevated
blood pressure, a condition that
is responsible for 62 percent of
strokes and 49 percent of coro-
nary heart disease, increases the
risk of dementia, and is a risk
factor for kidney disease.
Widespread avoidance of
added salt has the potential to
save hundreds of thousands of
lives. A study using mathemati-
cal models has predicted that a
population-wide reduction in
sodium intake by about one-
third would result in 60,000
fewer cases of coronary heart
disease, 32,000 fewer strokes
and 54,000 heart attacks every
year.
The majority of research on
the subject suggests that excess
sodium increases the risk of
heart disease and stroke.
Many claim that salt has been
“demonized,” that the data do
not clearly link high sodium
consumption to heart disease.
Doubt about the damaging ef-
fects of salt has been cast by
the occasional headline-mak-
ing study, but the majority of
studies have reported increased
blood pressure and cardiovascu-
lar risk associated with high so-
dium intake. Remember: when a
study suggests that an unhealthy
food may not be unhealthy, it
will always make headlines.
But the headline is never the
whole story. For example, in
2011, one analysis of data on
salt restriction concluded that
cutting down on salt does not
have clear benefi ts for reducing
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risk of death or cardiovascular
disease, and that more evidence
was required.
However, the
news headlines proclaimed that
salt had been exonerated and is
not at all hazardous to health. A
few weeks later, a criticism and
re-analysis of the same data was
published. These researchers
explained that by leaving out the
one trial of extremely ill heart
failure patients taking high-dose
diuretics, the same data actually
showed a 20 percent decreased
risk of heart attack and stroke
with a 2-gram reduction in daily
salt intake. This conclusion is
more consistent with the rest
of the science on salt and heart
disease.
Avoiding excess
sodium
Since most salt comes from
processed foods, avoiding add-
ed sodium isn’t diffi cult. Once
you start avoiding salt, your
taste buds will begin to adjust
and become more sensitive to
salt over time. Instead of salt,
use garlic, onion, fresh or dried
herbs, spices, lemon or lime
juice, or vinegars to fl avor food.
When you include some pack-
aged foods in your diet, read
the label and aim for no more
than 300 mg of added sodium
per day. Also, note that exotic
sea salts also add sodium to the
body just like table salt, and
therefore they present the same
risks. These specialty salts may
contain small amounts of trace
minerals, but the amounts are
insignifi cant compared to the
amounts that can be obtained
from natural plant foods.
Dr. Fuhrman is the #1 New
York Times bestselling author of
Eat to Live and Super Immuni-
ty, and a board certifi ed family
physician specializing in life-
style and nutritional medicine.
Visit his informative website at
DrFuhrman.com. Submit your
questions and comments about
this column directly to news-
questions@drfuhrman.com.
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