question: did you mean the "beach" near the school, or am i just not aware of what "the beats" means? i have heard of cottaging! 
also, what does "bikies" mean? it sounds like a motorbike gang. i ask about "beach" because in alameda, CA, the beach in those times were where gay men would congregate and cruise about. also, in SF, there was a busy spot (the windmills) at the end of golden gate park, right across from the pacific ocean.
Did not realise "beats" is not known outside Australia. It is/was a place for gays to hang out usually a toilet, pretty grotty. I think cottage is the same but that sounds so English to me. Back in the 50's/60's it was difficult to find the gay scene, mainly private parties from what I gather. I did not find the bars until the mid 70's and even then they could be raided which as I have said would have been a disaster for a teacher even in state schools.
Yes bikies are biker gangs. I still go weak at the knees if I see a guy in a leather jacket and have several. However I do not like facial hair much.
how strange to think that broken marriages and divorce was so shameful in those days, because now it's so commonplace that kids are actually amazed to learn that somebody's parents have actually never been divorced! at least that's how it seems in los angeles.
Yes, a bit the same here but my sister stuck with her husband when he began seeing another woman in the late 80's. It brought us closer together, we had drifted apart. My mother wanted me to remonstrate with him but I am 10 years younger and he knows I am a gay (and is a homophobe although we just do not say anything to each other for my sister's sake). Then he became very ill and almost died. His other woman disappeared but my sister went every day to the hospital to help him for over a month. She believes in her wedding vows. So he realised he was on a good thing. He is now too incapacitated to do without her.
Back in the 90's I was teaching adults and one woman brought her problems to me. She was breaking up with her husband and did not know how her daughter would react to the news. I thought it was funny when she told me her daughter said something like "Oh good, I am not the only one in the class now whose parents aren't divorced."
good to know about the date change in your post. i was gonna say, 1969 seemed early to be on a public panel about gay rights! good for you for doing that, even if it outed you in the process.
I wasn't actually on the panel. Just sitting listening and the camera came down and panned me up and down. I thought I had 24 hours (but hoped it ended on the cutting room floor) but it was on the late news so all over the school the next day. Somehow I survived. All went well until AIDS when kids became more nasty.
it boggles the mind that so may folks out there STILL want to make it impossible for openly gay teachers to teach in our schools. or to adopt and raise kids. smh... tsk tsk tsk
I could write a lot about the students who did come out to me, some happy, some sad. perhaps later. There is one, Paul, he now lives in Hawaii, is a psychiatric nurse, a US citizen, married and his husband is a ship board entertainer. Matt, his husband and a native Hawaaiian, comes on the Gay cruise of NZ that ends at the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras every 2nd year but I am disappointed is not sailing this year. Paul came with him in 2010, I had only been here a month, had bought my house but not moved in. We had lunch and I drove them around but Matt fell asleep after working late in the ship cabaret. Next time Matt was alone and asked to be taken to the Penguin colony. He rounded up 2 of the passengers to join us. Asian doctors from SF. They were beautiful guys, bought my lunch.
Then 2 years ago Paul came again and I took them to lunch and a scenic drive as well as back at my place. We toured the chocolate factory and the place was full of guys from the cruise and Paul, now in his late 40's, told everyone I was his gay teacher who helped him come out. Actually Paul is so flamboyant he did not need much help in coming out. He is one of those gays you can tell a mile off even when he was a teenager. At a school reunion in about 2009 he came over to the staff table and said "Brian, we are having a photo of all the gay guys, come and join us." That amused the brothers and many lay staff because it was from the year just before I was outed. He always asks me when I am getting married, but I tell him I am a lost cause.
I must go and get breakfast, have finished chatting with my sister.
