I learned to drive a car when I was 13 or 14 years old.
My family lived in the country (田舎), and there was nothing nearby--
no supermarket, no post office, no bank, no hospital, no convenience store. None of those things were in walking distance. The only things in walking distance were our neighbors and the cemetary (墓地）.
The neighbor on one side was about a 5 minute walk away, and the neighbor on the other side was a 10-15 minute walk away. No people lived across the road from us. That side was just wide empty fields. And behind us were woods (森）. Even our mailbox was about a 1-2 minute walk away from our house.
So, we really needed cars. Where we lived, you can't do anything without a car.
At that time, my grandmother's house was about 5km (kilometers) away from my house. We never walked. We always went by car. In the summer, it was too hot to walk. The average (平均）high temperature in my area in August is almost 36 degrees Celcius. And there were dogs on the way there. They would run out onto the road and bark (吠える）at us. Every house had dogs, and they ran around freely.
The road was a dirt road--no asphalt. When the weather was dry (almost always), some parts of the road were deep sand (砂） that was difficult to walk in. If it rained, the road became thick mud (泥), which was also difficult to walk in! It was almost impossible to ride a bicycle in those conditions too.
There were other houses along the road, but most of them were far back from the road. So it wasn't like in Japan where you walk to the post office or the supermarket from your house, and you see many people, and maybe you say hello to some of your neighbors. It was an empty, lonely road, and not very safe for people to walk on for a long distance.
Oh! And we also had to watch out for poisonous snakes (毒蛇）. And coyotes (コヨテ） and wild boars (イノシシ). They almost never bothered people, but we knew they were around. And, very rarely, we would hear about cougars (ピューマ) bothering peoples' cows.
So, my "neighborhood" was not a place where we wanted to take long walks. We always went to my grandmother's house by car. It was an easy drive on a dirt road from my house to my grandmother's house. There were very few other cars. Often we wouldn't see any other cars at all.
When we went to my grandmother's house, my father would often let me and my sister take turns driving. Our car was a manual transmission (マニュアル）, so that's what I learned to drive first. I don't think I ever drove an automatic transmission (オ-トマ) car until I came to Japan.
My father was surprisingly patient with us. It takes a while to learn how to drive a manual transmission car. The engine dies many times when a beginner tries to drive it. But we slowly got the feel for the clutch (ｸﾗｯﾁ）and the gear shift (シフトチェンジ) and the gas (アクセル）.
And that's how my sister and I learned to drive!
Thanks, Dad!
Next time, I'll write about how I learned to drive legally (法律違反じゃない方）.
(Don't worry. At that time, the police wouldn't get angry with us if we were learning to drive on a dirt road. They knew it was a neccessary breaking of the rules. Country kids had to learn how to drive!)
This is a side story. You can see that I grew up in a wild place.
Then I came to live in Japan. Once, I was visiting my neighbor here in Japan. I was carrying some boxes in my arms, so when I left the neighbor's house, I shut her gate with my foot. She said, "ミッシェルさん、ワイルドですね！” I laughed, because she didn't understand the environment where I grew up. Her standard (基準） of "wild" and my standard of "wild" were very different! (Like the comedian, Sugi-chan.) 