4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL OCTOBER 4, 2017
O PINION
Dr. Fuhrman:
Breast cancer risks
We hear constantly that moderate
consumption of alcohol, especially red
wine, is benefi cial for cardiovascular
health. However, when it comes to can-
cer risk, any amount of alcohol is risky. A 2014 report by the Inter-
national Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that there is no
safe amount of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk.1,2 Alcohol is
now considered a cause of cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx,
esophagus, colorectum, breast, and liver, and is linked to other can-
cers too.1,3,4
Some of red wine’s benefi t is thought to be due to resveratrol, a
phytochemical in grape skins that has anti-infl ammatory and anti-
oxidant effects that may help protect against cardiovascular disease
(CVD).5 However, the majority of the reduction in CVD risk is
actually from the inhibition of blood clotting by the alcohol. At this
point in time it is unknown whether resveratrol provides addition-
al benefi ts over the anti-coagulation effects.6 Plus grapes, raisins,
blueberries, cranberries, and peanuts also contain resveratrol – red
wine is not the exclusive source of this phytochemical. You will
get much more health benefi t from a cardio-protective diet of phy-
tochemical-rich plant foods than you will from an occasional glass
of red wine.
Regardless of whether resveratrol provides cardiovascular ben-
efi t, it is incorrect to think you are doing something good for your
health when you drink red wine. Even light drinking increases the
risk of several different types of cancer.
After alcohol is ingested, the body metabolizes it into a carcino-
genic compound called acetaldehyde.
The evidence suggests that even light drinking (less than 1 drink/
day) or using alcohol-containing mouthwashes may be risky.7-9
Additional carcinogenic substances are present in alcoholic bever-
ages, such as arsenic, benzene, cadmium, formaldehyde, lead, ethyl
carbamate, acrylamide, and afl atoxins.1
This is especially important for women to know, because there
are gender differences in alcohol metabolism. The same amount of
alcohol causes a greater blood alcohol level to be reached in females
compared to males of the same weight.10,11 Alcohol consumption
may also increase estrogen levels, which could further increase the
breast cancer risk associated with alcohol consumption.12
Less than one drink a day increases breast cancer, and more
drinking amplifi es the risk. Women in the range of 3-6 alcoholic
drinks weekly were found to have a 15% increase in breast can-
cer risk compared to non-drinkers, and 3-4 drinks per week is also
associated with higher rates of breast cancer recurrence after diag-
nosis.13-15 Increased cancer risk due to light alcohol intake is not
limited to breast cancer.
A meta-analysis of studies on the relationship between light
drinking and cancer risk estimated that light alcohol drinking is re-
sponsible for 5,000 deaths from oral and pharynx cancers, 24,000
deaths from esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and 5,000 deaths
from breast cancer worldwide each year. Importantly, the research-
ers found that this risk was dose-dependent: meaning the more you
drink, the greater the risk.16 For health and longevity, the safest
choice is to not drink any alcohol.
Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York Times best-selling author and a
board certifi ed family physician specializing in lifestyle and nutri-
tional medicine. The Eat To Live Cookbook offers over 200 unique
disease-fi ghting delicious recipes and his newest book, The End of
Heart Disease, offers a detailed plan to prevent and reverse heart
disease using a nutrient-dense, plant-rich (NDPR) eating style. Vis-
it his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. Submit your ques-
tions and comments about this column directly to newsquestions@
drfuhrman.com
By Joel Fuhrman, MD
For The Sentinel
Offbeat Oregon History
It goes without saying that Oregon has
changed
in the 50 years that have gone by
For The Sentinel
since the Tom McCall era.
People who remember Oregon in 1967 look
back on a sort of Edenic place, comfortably conservative in some
ways and progressive in others; a place with plentiful good-paying
jobs and high levels of public services and low taxes and excellent
roads, all paid for by a booming timber industry.
It went away, of course, when the mills started mechanizing and
the available logging projects dwindled, starting in the mid-1970s.
But while it lasted, it was a real and distinctive regional culture.
To get a sense of that culture (or, for those of us who have been
here long enough, to remember it), there’s really no better refresher
than Pixieland.
Pixieland no longer exists; it was open for just four years, near-
ly 40 years ago. But those four years captured the essence of that
postwar Oregon culture that was celebrated in the state’s Centennial
bash in 1959: a culture, really, of endless progress and proud com-
mercialism and innocence.
The Pixieland story really starts in 1953, when Jerry and Lu Parks
bought a little restaurant called the Pixie Pot Pie in Otis, located
on Highway 18 just east of Lincoln City — right on the highway
Salem-area residents took to get to the beach.
The Parkses renamed the restaurant Pixie Kitchen, and over the
subsequent decade or so built on the pixie theme until the place
almost had a mythology of its own. The décor of the place was
themed around a community of pixies, depicted with a distinctive
artistic style with little green pointed caps. There was a set of fun-
house mirrors in the foyer for kids to entertain themselves with.
The restaurant focused heavily on kids, providing paper placemats
that could be folded into pixie hats. The tables along the back wall
looked out through huge plate-glass windows on a courtyard with
a motorized diorama of three pixies running a little train. And, of
course, the food was excellent.
By the late 1960s, the Pixie Kitchen was a destination restaurant,
and a meal there was an integral part of thousands of Oregon fami-
lies’ regular beach-trip plans. In an age when waiting for a table was
almost unheard-of at a diner, the Pixie Kitchen sometimes had so
many people waiting that they had to line up outside.
So Jerry and Lu decided they would build on that popularity by
giving the kids more of what they loved so much about the Pixie
Kitchen: An 57-acre amusement park centered around those pixies.
It would be more than a collection of thrill rides, though, this
amusement park. No, Pixieland would be a cultural artifact, a teach-
ing tool for young Oregonians to learn about their state and its his-
tory and culture. It would be, as Jerry Parks put it, “a fairy-tale story
of Oregon.”
There would be a frontier town, a la “Little House on the Prairie”;
there would also be an Indian village and canoe docks. Vaudeville
shows would be performed in an opera house, and there would be
an old-fashioned penny arcade. A petting zoo would feature the
important animals of Oregon history. And the logging industry
would be represented by an old 1890s-vintage narrow-gauge steam
logging locomotive (dubbed “Little Toot”) and by the piece de re-
sistance of the park: A log-fl ume ride, in which kids would sit in
fi berglass boats shaped like hollowed-out logs and ride a sort of
roller-coaster track through the park.
Jerry and Lu unveiled their plans in 1967, and the response was
uniformly enthusiastic. The two of them put up $300,000 as seed
money; made the rounds of businesses for sponsorships; held a pub-
lic stock offering to raise another half-million; and got to work on
the project.
They hired two former Disneyland executives to help them de-
sign the place. It would be built on a 57-acre swampy tidal fl at on
the edge of the Salmon River estuary; they built a dike around it and
drained it to get the requisite fi rmness underfoot.
Oregon businesses loved the idea, and hurried to get into the act
By Finn JD John
with sponsorships of rides and exhibits.
Pixieland opened for business on June 28, 1969, with Gov. Tom
McCall offi cially dedicating it. Shiny and new, it featured a frontier
Main Street lined with Western-style shops — a print shop, gift
store, the penny arcade. There was the Darigold Barn, serving milk-
shakes and chocolate milk and other dairy treats; and, slumped im-
probably against it and looking a bit like a colossal drop of drywall
mud with a hole in the front, the Darigold Cheese Cave, in which
visitors could sample every kind of cheese then known to the Ore-
gon of that pre-hipster-cheese-bar era.
Other business sponsorships included the Fisher Scone conces-
sion building, its roof made of a colossal plaid-painted fi berglass
replica of a Scottish tam, and the piece de resistance — the Franz
Bread Rest Hut, shaped like a great hollow log with a huge fi ber-
glass loaf of balloon bread jutting incongruously out of its top. In-
side this, guests could watch their kids enjoy the park’s only real
thrill ride: the log fl ume.
There was an opera house (sponsored by Blue Bell Potato Chips),
a big two-story structure built like a 1910s Grange hall, in which
live Vaudeville melodramas ran daily — with noble, manly heroes
saving fair young maidens from mustache-twirling villains, and
other turn-of-the-century theatrical tropes.
And everywhere there were murals and sculptures and plywood
cut-outs of the ubiquitous pixies, fl ashing winning smiles with a
hint of mischief behind them.
There were hints of trouble from the start. Plans fell through;
costs ran high; the Parkses had to scale back the planned exhibits
and rides. They also seem to have had to cut back on their landscap-
ing budget. As a result, even in the postcard views of Pixieland, it
looks a little bit unfi nished — like the playground at a rural ele-
mentary school. The paths and walkways are asphalt, at the side of
which the well-groomed grass starts up without the formality of a
curb or border. And there’s a good deal of unused space.
That slight air of seediness may have contributed to the park’s
demise. It’s more likely, though, that its primary challenge was the
short operating season — there’s a reason Disneyland is located in a
place that gets 15 inches of rain a year. Almost all of Pixieland was
outdoors, and even in the summertime things can get drizzly and
chilly in Lincoln City. How many families chose a different desti-
nation for their beach vacation out of fear that the weather would
ruin it? It’s impossible to say.
In any case, by 1974 Pixieland was no more. The log fl ume ride
and Little Toot were sold to the Lagoon Amusement Park in Utah,
where they are still in service today. And by the late 1970s, the park
was essentially a 57-acre blackberry bramble.
The Pixie Kitchen soldiered on for another dozen or two years,
but it seemed as if the magic had been drawn out of it and infused
into the failure of Pixieland. It changed hands several times, and
fi nished its run as a nightclub. Sometime in the 1990s, a fi re dam-
aged the structure, and although the best part of the building was
still OK, there apparently was no reason to keep it going. It was
demolished, and today is just a level place beside the road.
Today, the site that once held Pixieland has been restored as part
of the Salmon River estuary. The tides have been allowed to fl ow
freely back in and mix with river water, providing cover for all sorts
of wildlife — especially salmon smolts. As of fi ve years ago there
was still a building on the grounds — a little tide-gate shack, built in
the classic cartoon-pixie style. But by now, likely that’s even gone,
and, a mere 40 years later, Nature has reclaimed its own.
So, could Pixieland have been saved? Likely not. It was other
factors that killed it, but by 1974 the culture of Oregon was chang-
ing as well, as the demoralization of the Watergate scandal and the
growing legitimacy of the anti-war counterculture, plus environ-
mental objections to full-throttle logging, undermined the shared
vision of progress and egalitarian libertarianism that had knitted
postwar Oregon together as a community.
C ottage G rove
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