Thumbs up, thumbs down
Thumbs up to the potential for a vibrant foliage this autumn.
With steady rainfall over the spring and August along with a good growing season, experts say the colors will pop if nighttime temperatures drop in the days and weeks ahead.
It may seem frivolous to wish for more colorful surroundings than we experienced a year ago, but keep in mind that it is also all about the money.
Fall foliage draws considerable tourism dollars. Thumbs up to a drop in the number of lowincome adults in rural areas and small towns in Connecticut who are uninsured.
A national study cited Connecticut as having one of the sharpest declines from 2008 to 2016.
In Litchfield County, the uninsured tumbled from 32 percent in 2008-09 to 9 percent.
The change is attributed to expansions in Medicaid coverage.
Thumbs up to reports that the United Way’s Strong Start literacy and summer skills programs have produced a double-digit increase in test scores and student growth measures for kindergarteners at Park Avenue Elementary School, according to a report presented to Danbury Public Schools leaders last week.
This a heartening surge at one of the area’s schools serving low-income families, where 78 percent of students qualify for free or reducedprice lunch and where two-thirds of the children are English learners. Thumbs down to the recent rash of fatal encounters between boaters and loggerhead sea turtles in the waters of Long Island Sound. Four dead turtles, their shells apparently sliced open by propellers, have washed ashore since mid-July. The turtles, marine experts seem to agree, are more common in the Sound because some fish species are recovering the strengthening Sound and the turtles follow the food.
They are beautiful creatures and we’d hope that boaters would stay on watch for them, particularly in the shallow water and near grasses, where they like to feed.
Thumbs down to yet another case of MetroNorth Railroad cars bumping and sending an employee to the hospital. The latest accident occurred early Saturday on out-of-service tracks between East and South Norwalk. The employee was not seriously injured, but was sent to the hospital for observation. Last July, three Metro-North workers were injured in what Metro-North referred to as a “bump” and a “tap.”