"She's Gone Country"

Confession #50: I like country music almost as much as I like green Toyota Tacomas.

Whether it be the old favorites such as Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash or the new pop stars like Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney, I love them all.

The truth is I'm an unusual mix between hippy and hick as far as culture goes. I'd be just as blissful country line dancing to French-Canadian fiddle tunes as I would be to contra dance to Tim McGraw. I wear rubber boots and kneeless jeans, yet I drink water from a mason jar all day. The fishermen find my mason jar a bit peculiar. They cock their head and ask if I'm drinking moonshine. I don't know how many times I've been asked that question down to the shoah. Yesterday I was over at a very granola boatbuilding school and commented to my friend how nice it is to be in a place where drinking from a mason jar is the norm. I explained how I like to drink from jars both to avoid toxin-releasing plastic containers as well as to keep my drink covered so that hogrings don't jump into it while I'm working. He replied that he didn't know what hogrings were, but he wouldn't want them in his drink either!

I've always enjoyed the country classics, but haven't always been a fan of modern country. I have an ex-boyfriend, a lobsterman none-the-less, to thank for this conversion. Modern country wasn't my music of choice when "Lars" and I started dating. I was horrified to find out that he couldn't fall asleep without 99.9 "The Moose" (our local country station) playing as background music all night. I never thought of "I Wanna Check You for Ticks" as a lullaby before, but apparently he did. I tried to negotiate on the genre, but this was inconceivable. We reached a compromise that the country could be played softly. I succumbed to wearing earplugs, but I'm used to dead quiet at night and I could still hear the twang of that darn steel guitar and the idiodic southern drawl. I fought it, but eventually it grew on me. I still couldn't get any sleep between "The Moose" and Lars snoring, but it didn't take long before I memorized the lyrics and got to liking those heartache tunes in an ironic, half-joking way.

Now I'm hopelessly hooked. My earthy friends aren't shy to poke fun at me for my pride at loving cheesy country pop. When I stopped laughing derisively at modern country, I realized that I can actually relate to some of those corny lyrics. Billy Currington's "That's How Country Boys Roll" nails 3 of my exes to a T. Brad Paisley's "Catch All the Fish" fires me up for hauling traps on the early morning drive to work. And Gretchen Wilson's "Work Hard, Play Harder!" is the philosophy that I try to live by these days.

So next time you hear "Country Boy" (Alan Jackson) on the radio, give it a chance and listen to the lyrics. You might hear this sternlady singing along!