As we approach the flu season, cheers to drafters of new policies that require all health care employees at Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center to get flu shots or wear masks.

The move is designed to reduce the chance that already sick and weakened patients will get the flu from employees. Then, there’s the benefit of flu-ridden patients not infecting employees, reducing the chance that these employees will take the virus home to their families and friends.

Although some hospital employees are not entirely supportive of the vaccination requirement, and may instead choose to sport a mask through the better part of the winter season, it just makes sense to inoculate health-care workers since hospital environments, as a basic matter of fact, are teeming with flu risk. As are schools and other public places.

We hope our local hospitals serve as examples of the importance of vaccination, which is our community’s best collective defense to the flu, and the very real danger of deadly infection.

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Cheers to Bates College for its generosity in, once again, opening the campus to the families of our communities to enjoy. Today, the college invites locals to attend soccer, lacrosse and football games, and is hosting Lewiston-Auburn youth football games in its new multimillion-dollar stadium.

It is the first of what we hope will be many annual L-A Community Day events at Bates, and will include pumpkin-carving, face-painting and mini-sport clinics.

Best of all? Everything is free.

Bates College is one of Lewiston’s gems, and there is an opportunity today to celebrate that.

For a schedule, go to home.bates.edu/views/2011/10/06/athletics-community-day.

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Anyone who drives remembers who taught them how to do that. And, nearly everyone who drives knows that it can be tense to have a parent be that instructor. As teens learn to drive, they’re usually on our very best behavior with mom or dad parked in the passenger seat.

Then, as soon as the license is bestowed and there’s no need for dad to tag along, driving habits can — and do — get sloppy.

Insurance companies that have a real stake in reducing the accident rate, including Progressive and AAA, have developed nifty little tracking devices that record driving habits.

For parents, it can help monitor a child’s driving habits, including where teens have been.

It’s a tool, according to AAA officials, to help parents “coach” their children to become better drivers. That’s probably not how teens view the device, but the fact is that it provides some level of insurance — and assurance — that teens obey best driving practices because they know parents are monitoring their behavior. And, when teens drive like mom and dad are in the car, our roads are safer places for everyone.

For a generation of teens who are already monitored by parents via cellphone, this kind of scrutiny is not too much of a stretch for the very worthy purposes of improving public safety and reducing insurance rates.

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Cheers to Scott Smith, who acted quickly Tuesday to help Stacie Farrell get out of her car after Farrell crashed into the canal off Lisbon Street.

Smith saw Farrell’s SUV crash after she swerved to avoid a car stopped on the road in front of her, and he stopped immediately, jumped out of his van, ran out on a pier and started working his way down to help Farrell. He helped her climb out a window, and settled her in a spot where passing health-care workers were able to treat her injuries.

Smith and Farrell had gone to high school together, so Smith recognized her, but it wasn’t that familiarity that prompted his action.

It was just plain, human decency that drove his response to help another person.

Very cool.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com

The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and editorial board.

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