how did you learn to work on cars?

School of hard knocks, my old man told me, if I break it, I will fix it, or I walk. So being young and stupid i wanted the biggest boat car with the biggest motor i could possibly find, because at the time my dart was a gutless turd. Luckily my Dad is a chevy guy, so when i purchased my 76 Cordoba, 400/727, he figured it was a smallblock (chevy 400 SB ya know) and when i informed him that it was literally a punched out 383 he was a little angry, but by then it was already mine. I started working at NAPA when i was 16 so parts were cheap for me. After he strictly told me not to do a 4 barrel swap, I did it anyway. Rebuilt my junkyard thermoquad with a ton of trial and error....mostly error, finally got it right, also learned the importance of the kickdown linkage adjustment. Did a shift kit when i was 17, grenaded my first driveshaft sortly after, (no i never "laid J's" I knew better than that) learned how much it sucks to buy tires....converted the factory ignition system to a stand alone MSD unit as a shop project my junior year, and built my own gauge pods from exhaust pipe as a shop project. Creamed a deer the summer of 07, went to the junkyard the next day and bought a whole new front end, had it back together the following day. Learned how much it sucks to get the side seals for the rear main cap on a big block to seal up, 440source viton side seals are a life saver by the way (after the 3rd time of doing it), then summer of 09 the transmixer let loose, tore it down, the clutch facings were all but gone. My dad taught me the main things though, oil changes, repacking wheel bearings and changing seals, brake work, greasing the ENTIRE chassis....hes a logger, Id help him grease equipment all the time. so when id miss a zirk all hell would come crashing down on me, and it stuck, cause im the same way now :P