Hey, real glad you're readin' the words I'm-a writin' here, little lady! Or something.
I'm nothing like you: there was no country music played in my house - all old 30s/40s Perry Como/Bing Crosby/Matt Munroe kind of stuff. Literally 78 records, and only brought down from the attic at Christmas in a vain attempt by my waste of skin father to try to make up for the abuse of the rest of the year. We had the radio, but at the time it was the national one only, and so you had Irish artists, trad, showbands (shiver) and various pop artists, nothing you could really identify with. Once I got my own radio (which I won for having a piece published in a comic) Radio Luxembourg was my saviour.
But I was totally ignorant of country music, and laughed at it well up to, well, almost my mid-forties I guess. It's only recently that I've been giving it more of a chance. I think my gateway into it was Nanci Griffith, who I grew to love, then for harder fare, Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam, but I really have a lot to learn about country, which is why I started writing this.