Of course I love seeing my wonderful family, reading library books, and the neat shows I like to watch on television. But, a constant joy to me is music. I love the great music my radio station 92.1 plays all day long. I like that they also pass along any on-going traffic problems and the latest news too. But they just keep delighting me with songs I prefer. I have fallen in love with Harvest Moon and thankfully WJGA plays it maybe once a week. When Christmas is on the way, they play a lot of wonderful carols and seasonal joys too. I’ve learned some new voices and I particularly like Michael Bublé. Of course, Alan Jackson is my favorite of all those who make their living providing joy to the public.

I love the annual CD I get from a former client and the new Christmas songs he adds to the mix of the traditional ones. He also provides a great print-out that gives information about each item in his wonderful collection. (Interesting that next year we’ll be able to get the music off the internet and I know he’ll explain that process to me.) That CD goes into the Camry and I play it when I’m on my way to church and back. I always keep Alan Jackson’s ‘Precious Memories’ CD in the Camry too. My somewhat-antique-home-radio doesn’t want to play CDs anymore so I’m looking for a replacement that suits my style.

Part of the time, my radio station has great Sunday services I enjoy, but sometimes I just want to listen to music. So, I turn the TV to channel 934, which plays only country music. It’s neat that they have so many Christmas country songs in late December. There are several other music channels in the 900+ section and sometimes I’ll listen to songs from the seventies and eighties, some oldies and lots more.

I still have a large collection of CDs I bought over the years, and of course they are all arranged alphabetically; the longest row is Alan Jackson, but I’ll bet you already knew that! When we had a larger choir, and sang lots more special music, our music director would purchase CDs that went along with the nice books of our new songs. I still have several of those, and wish I’d written the date on the little disc. But even though our church has fewer every Sunday in the sanctuary, and of course fewer in the choir, we still practice our oldies but also learn some new joy too.

I do notice that some of the people driving beside the Henry Hilton as they head into town have their radios up so loud that my windows shake. I’m wondering if that music joy will one day cause them to lose their hearing ability. I’ll bet they will need a hearing aid or maybe a medical procedure thanks to the volume being too high. Guess I’ll add them to my prayer list.

I’m glad I grew up enjoying music, learning hymns, and of course going to Broadway shows with my grandmother. I was so happy when the Henry County Performing Arts Center was built across the street from me and I never missed a single musical or other fun production there.

Our pastor had our Christmas Eve service this year at 3:30, which worked out great. Neat that he had us sing different Christmas carols from our hymnal, but told us we didn’t have to stand for every song. I loved the solo his daughter Becky sang about Mary’s joy at being Mother to baby Jesus! I came home, got on Facebook and then … WOW … I saw my son Ron’s Christmas Eve service at Timberridge. I am SO blessed!

Beverly Wittler has four children, eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. She lives in McDonough.