How I was introduced to Objectivism

This is my first post of the new year and the first attempt to write about how I came to Objectivism, so bare with me.
Imagine in the early 1970's, a not very good looking teenager driving around alone at night in his 1969 327 Camaro. I vividly recall one night driving around and lamenting my life and future. Here I am a high school grad and saying out loud to myself, "I need to learn how to think." I knew then as a struggling 19 year old, (I graduated HS at 17), that something was missing, and I also knew that government schooling was not providing the answers I needed.(I also knew that going to college right after HS was not going to serve me well, even though my dad put lots of pressure on me to do so). Sadly, many years go by and all I'm reading at the time are the sports page and the occasional magazine. Alas, having moved to Nashville, Tennessee from those school days in Arkansas, I'm still functioning at a very low level, just working menial job's and scraping by. Living in Nashville a short while, I walk into a music store and strike up a conversation with one of the salesmen about music and bands. We became friends and after a few months, he says to me, "I've got something you should look at."  He brings me The Fountainhead and says he'd like me to read it.
Well, that was in March of 1979. After reading it for a day or two, I went out and bought my own copy and anything else I could find of Miss Rand's. I carried my copy around in my back pocket for weeks, reading it in snatches. To me, The Fountainhead was like Linus's security blanket. Hell, I even went to bed with it next to my pillow.
For years, everything I had been seeking, thinking about and not able to put in to that many words were flowing out of those pages and into my mind.
I've never looked back.
Oh, and yeah, I wish I still had that Camaro!