A family friend took her kids to University when they were still kids.

She took them several times a year during their school years. They visited different universities – to see the layout of the universities, to attend public events at universities, to expose her kids to the names of things at universities (faculty, degree, etc.), to have lunch at the university, visit the library and maybe even talk with staff and students.

The idea was to make her kids feel comfortable and familiar with universities, so when it came time for them to study at university, it would feel more familiar and normal than it does for most people.

Both her kids are now studying at uni and doing very well.

I thought about this and I thought that where your parents take you regularly as a kid could influence what you want to do when you grow up.

A lot of parents take their kids to cricket test matches or tennis tournaments or State of Origin footy games, which might give their kids the inspiration to see themselves being elite athletes one day. By experiencing it as kids, perhaps it seems more familiar and attainable as they get older.

So I thought, maybe even subconsciously, parents take you more to where they hope you might go when you are an adult.

Then I realised where my Dad took me EVERY SATURDAY when I was a kid: the TAB, the pub, and the local prison.

First up, we’d go to the TAB, where I would sit bored in the big window sill while Dad put all his bets on for the day.

Next we’d go to the prison. Dad did volunteer work to help people inside – provide counselling, help illiterate prisoners write letters to their families, bring literate prisoners books or magazines to read, help find accommodation and a job for those about to be released.

I would sit bored in the waiting room while Dad went inside and made his visits. This convinced me that prison was a really bad place – you had to just sit there for hours and do nothing.
One morning, a guard left a door open between the waiting room and the prisoners’ recreation room. A cheery prisoner stuck his head around the corner and asked if I’d like a game of table tennis. Would I!

So I sprang up and into the rec room and played table tennis with the prisoner. We had a great time until the guard reappeared and went mental.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Playing table tennis” (Duh!)
“Get the hell out of here right now! You’re not ever allowed in here!”.
Wow. Not allowed to play table tennis with a perfectly good table right there. That’s even worse than just sitting here doing nothing. Prison really does suck.

In summer, I saw there might be some redeeming qualities to prison. It was a minimum security facility, so on Saturdays, the prisoners were allowed supervised access to a neighbouring park to play cricket. I loved cricket, and in full view of my Dad and the guards, I was allowed to practice my cricket skills with some of the batting team so the summer prison visits were far more bearable than winter visits.

Even as a kid, I wondered “Now they are out here, why don’t the prisoners just run away?”

Some of them must have read my mind because one Saturday, several of them were volunteering to field at extra deep, deep, deep, deep, deep long on, which positioned them a few kilometres North of the oval and the prison.

There were multiple escapes from the cricket games across two weekends. Thinking back, I like that the security was so relaxed that the prison administration thought “Nah, they tried to escape last week. They won’t try it again.”  After two weekends of multiple cricket escapes, the cricket was cancelled. Despite some promise, prison was definitely losing its appeal.

After visiting the prison, Dad would take me to the pub (kids were allowed in pubs in our town). If I “had behaved”, i.e., if he was a in a good mood irrespective of my behaviour, I’d get a fire engine (raspberry lemonade) and a packet of chicken chips. We’d play pool while he watched the horse racing results and if his horses were doing OK, Dad would let me win at pool. If his horses did really well, then I’d be rewarded with an entire afternoon of fire engines, chicken chips and games of pool.

From the time I was six to the time I was sixteen, he did take me to two cricket test matches, several Aussie rules games and a dozen rugby league games. He also took me to a rugby international where we were standing for the entire game and all I could see were the backs of the adults in front of me.  And the match was a draw. It had all the tedium of visiting prison, but with standing instead of sitting  (At least soccer would have had some brawls and random crowd fires to keep things interesting). However, none of these big sporting events were frequent enough to make me think that Dad was preparing me for the possibility of one day becoming an ‘elite athlete’.

Then I realised by exposing me to gambling, drinking and hanging out with criminals EVERY WEEKEND, maybe in his own way, he WAS preparing me for the possibility of one day becoming an ‘elite athlete’.

Then again, maybe he just wanted me to enjoy fire engines, chicken chips and an occasional game of pool.