It's the time of year to do a summary of the past 12 months. There's no telling how many hours I've spent in the past 35 years reading old newspapers as a reminder.

This year, we're letting that slide.

In the last few days I've decided to label this “The Year of the Stoplight.”

In the mid-70s I talked a policeman in Lexington out of giving me a ticket for turning left on a red arrow by convincing him we didn't have stoplights in Russellville with arrows, that we only had three or four, and they sure didn't have turn signals.

“I thought it meant don't turn until nothing was coming,” I told him, and really I wasn't sure.

I count 16 traffic lights in Russellville now, 17 counting the one just outside the city limits at the entrance to Logan County High School.

At least two of them are new this year- the one on the south side of the Wal-Mart SuperCenter that will open this month and the one being installed at Ninth and Main.

For the next few months I'm going to try to avoid Ninth and Main, since I don't want to get bulldozed into one of the historic houses along that street by an 18-wheeler that can't (or didn't) stop.

And, of course, that's the purpose of the light, to get as much traffic off Ninth as possible so it won't be so noisy. If some cars can turn left off Main, that's a plus. I never go that far up the hill anyway. I learned about 30 years ago it's too difficult and too dangerous to make that turn anyway.

What else will we remember in 2005? Here are a few:

It was the year that-