THEN JESUS TOOK MY HAND
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1976, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
THEN JESUS TOOK MY HAND
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1976, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
LET GOD TELL YOU
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1975, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
1 - 3 JULY
Friday – Sunday
I sing and minister in music at the First Annual Gospel Music Festival in Rosebud, Alberta.
This music festival at Rosebud was the first of three that I would attend and in which I ministered in music. It was an enjoyable time and paved the way for other concerts that I would later produce and in which I would also sing.
Lana becomes pregnant for the second time.
10 JULY
Sunday
I begin to write a screenplay entitled Headhunter.
I never finished this one. It still sits in my ‘to do’ box
14 JULY
Thursday
I begin to take a writer's correspondence course through Norm Rohrer's Christian Writers Guild.
This Christian writing course soon went the way of the art courses I took previously—discarded. After several lessons, I realized that I didn’t have the mental or spiritual outlook or desire to write what was known as ‘inspirational’ fiction. I never felt like my life was inspiring, and I certainly didn’t know how to present an inspirational life through my writing. Not unlike critiques I received for a later stage play I wrote, Christian inspirational novels seemed to be too ‘preachy’.
As part of the course, I write a synopsis for a short story called The Parting.
I sing at the Hillhurst Salvation Army's Band and Songster Musicale.
I write a synopsis for a short story called The Three Elizabeths.
AUGUST
We take a trip to British Columbia, visit Penticton, and then spend a week in a cabin next to the Shuswap Lake.
Fred from Foothills Bookstore owned the cabin, and we’re forever grateful to him for allowing us to use it.
The first night in the cabin is a little unsettling for Nathan as he is used to sleeping in his own bed, but he gradually adjusts.
The time we spent at Shuswap Lake was very relaxing for the three of us once we got there. On the way, I had a migraine headache, so I stopped at a gas station to get some painkillers. Although they didn’t have Aspirin®, they did have Midol®, so I took one of those instead. Worked just as well.
25 AUGUST
Thursday
Lana’s 30th birthday.
I write an article called A Change of Perspective. I submit it to several Christian magazines [Pentecostal Evangel, Christian Inquirer, and Moody Monthly], but they all reject it.
SEPTEMBER
Lana and Nathan fly down to Fenelon Falls to visit her birth mother, Grace.
WINTER
I write The Mysterious Mr Claus, a Christmas short story.
While at Foothills Bookstore, I was able to print up my first piece of sheet music.
I never did sell any....
THE GREAT I AM
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1979, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
MY FRIEND
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1985, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
25 JANUARY
Sunday
Norm Worth and Owen Scott, pastors at the downtown Full Gospel Church, hold a dedication ceremony for Nathan.
Since I no longer enjoy my work at the General Hospital, I look for another job and find one as a shipper-receiver at Foothills Bookstore, a Lutheran retail book outlet.
Basically, the job involved wrapping books and various other items ordered by customers in corrugated cardboard that we had to send out in the mail.
I photograph two young ladies—Wendy and Diane—who work there and who are willing to pose for me.
MARCH
To increase my understanding of Christianity, I consider taking assorted Bible and theological classes from the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada correspondence school, but the courses are too expensive for me.
7 MARCH
Sunday
I sing a special number at the Full Gospel Church
While working at Foothills Bookstore, Fred—one of the men who works with me—helps me get my driver’s license, after which I begin making mail deliveries of parcels to the post office warehouse at the airport.
Fred’s sage advice to me when learning to operate the truck was—“Drive with reckless abandon and if you hit something, jump out and see what the damage is!”
I used to take up to 12 bags of wrapped items to the post office every day. When I got there, I’d take the bags out and place them on the docking bay relatively gently so none of the packages inside would dent or rip. However, when the postal workers grabbed them, they tended to hurl the bags a good five to ten feet to holes in the dock down which the bags would subsequently tumble.
29 MAY
Saturday
Lana and I attend the wedding of Bill and Annabelle who wears Lana's wedding dress.
12 JUNE
Saturday
I hold a Revival Meeting at the Vista Heights Community Hall, but very few people attend.
SUMMER
We buy our first car—a 1962 Ford Galaxie, for $1.00, from our friend, Paul.
One upside of the year, of course, was that first car which we got so cheap! And, in those days, car insurance wasn’t very expensive, either, especially for a vehicle as old as that one happened to be. But, at the time, it was in very good shape.
31 JULY
Saturday
We attend Charles & Frances Hunter’s Holy Spirit Christian Walk Seminar.
Oddly enough, the only thing I remember from the whole seminar occurred when the Charles and Francis walked up the center aisle of the auditorium with their hands outstretched, many people ‘fell under the power of the Holy Spirit’.
15 AUGUST
Sunday
I sing at the 1976 Western Canadian Charismatic Conference on Prince's Island Park.
I certainly enjoyed ministering at various concerts and services. I wish there could have been more of them, but outlets at the time were quite limited in Calgary’s Christian circles. Or—more likely—you had to be a member of a particular church or denomination in order to participate.
Lana becomes an Avon representative.
Lana did extremely well as an Avon representative. She later got involved in sales work for different businesses. It was something at which she excelled. Before and after we met, she worked for the Alberta Government Telephones in Calgary as a long-distance operator. She told me that one day she got to talk for a few moments to entertainer, Jack Benny, who was calling someone in the city.
23 AUGUST
Monday
In response to my previous inquiry, Sparrow Records lets me know they are not currently looking for new artists.
25 AUGUST
Wednesday
For Lana's birthday, our friends Tim and Karla join us at the Tiki Tiki Restaurant.
Tim and Karla later became involved with the Rosebud School of the Arts with Tim’s brother, Laverne, and after that, the Honeymoon Bay Lodge & Retreat in British Columbia.
31 AUGUST
Tuesday
I pitch an idea for a superhero adventure comic book series to Spire Christian Comics, but they already have enough titles.
I'm asked at Foothills Bookstore if I'd be interested in helping in the store’s printing department since the person currently working there is due to leave in a few weeks.
I say I would. That is on a Friday. I come in the following Monday to find out that the printer has already left, so I'm left pretty much on my own to figure out how the printing press [an A B Dick 360] works, as well as the darkroom equipment, bindery, folder, collator, plate burner, and other paraphernalia. Fortunately, one of the managers also knows quite a bit, so I won’t be completely lost.
I thoroughly enjoyed working in the printing department once I knew what I was doing. They left me on my own and, if I got the required work done, I could do what I liked. Many times, I worked past closing time because I had gotten so involved on whatever project I was working. The hardest part proved to be learning how to run the press, but I soon got the hang of it.
One time, I had to run 500 copies of a four-color, 2-sided cover for the store catalogue—one color at a time: yellow, cyan, magenta, and black. It was tedious and not a little stressful trying to align one color over the other in the precise position it needed to be, using a folding magnifier loupe and miniscule movements of the metal plate by hand. By the time I finished, I’m sure I must have wasted three or four times the amount of cover stock needed for the job in order to get some decent-looking final copies.
SEPTEMBER
I look into the possibility of recording a 33 1/3 rpm album of my music at Master’s Workshop in Rexdale, Ontario, or at Sound West Recording Studios in Calgary, but I find the prices too expensive for me.
I continue to market myself and my songs, but still don't find an interested music publisher or record producer.
For various personal reasons, in a continuing search for a new church home, we begin to attend services at Calgary Christian Centre where, once they get to know me and my ministry, they let me lead worship on occasion.
An announcement in the church bulletin indicates I will be involved in several projects—printing and song leading in special outreach services—but none of them ever happen.
This year proved to be one of major ups and downs for me spiritually and emotionally—so many promises made at Christian Centre [running the church offset press; recording tapes; forming and directing the church choir; traveling with the pastor to hold charismatic meetings] and none of them saw fruition. It proved very disheartening for me, and I never understood the reason[s] why nothing ever happened.
SING
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1977, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
During this year, I continue to attempt to market my Christian songs, once again with no success.
JANUARY
Lana becomes pregnant.
I join F.G.B.I.’s yearbook staff as layout editor.
24 FEBRUARY
Monday
Augsburg Publishing House returns my music manuscripts for Jesus and Did You Know, and say they are not suitable for their current catalog.
SPRING
I sing at The Way Inn coffee house in Eston.
13 APRIL
Sunday
I pass First Year at F.G.B.I.
LATE APRIL
Believing I should attend Jubilee Bible College, Lana and I pack up our things to move to Vancouver.
Lana and I don’t remember, now, why we felt I should go to Jubilee. No doubt it may have had something to do with several of my friends moving there rather than a direct leading from God.
Since he is going there, too, another student, Sterling, takes us with him in his car.
We three stay for about a month with four other students [Shannon, Mike, Avis, and Monty] in a house owned by a woman named Grace Kelly.
Residence:
West 16th Avenue
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Quite frankly, although a very sweet woman, Grace was a hoarder. She had two-foot high piles of newspapers and magazines going back many, many years in virtually all the rooms of the house, with 18-inch-wide paths running through them. Bibliophile that I am, I would have liked to spend more time perusing them all. However, despite the accumulated horde of periodicals, she did keep the house in a clean and tidy condition.
Obviously needing money to pay for tuition, I manage to find a job at the Venture Press printing company.
Looking back, I see now that becoming familiar with the printing environment that surrounded Venture Press helped prepare me for an eventual 40+ year career as an offset printer.
While here, I also meet a fellow worker, Ted.
I remember thinking at the time that if I ever had a gay or even bi-sexual relationship with a man, it would be Ted; something about his personality really appealed to me. So, even as a Christian, I continued to struggle with my sexual and gender identity.
After I eventually leave Venture Press, I find work at the Canadian Pacific Railway in the stores. It's while I’m working here that Lana and I meet a Christian couple for whom I write the song, Ellen-Lynn . Her name is Ellen; his is Lynn.
MAY
With a baby on the way, Lana and I will need a place of our own. So, while looking for somewhere more permanent to live, we manage to house-sit for three families away on vacation.
27 MAY
Tuesday
I receive a response from the ‘Vancouver Reachout with Leighton Ford’ regarding an earlier request to possibly minister in music with them. Unfortunately, they are not currently looking for anyone.
4 AUGUST
Monday
FEL Publications return my songs. Although they “have merit, they would be more suited to another publisher”.
SEPTEMBER
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find long-term rental accommodation since so many places in Vancouver don't want tenants with babies or children.
After we find and rent an upstairs apartment in a house, we’re awakened by the aroma of curry cooking at eleven o’clock at night.
Much as Lana and I love Indian food, smelling it at that time of night in her pregnancy wasn’t conducive to her condition.
Then, halfway through the month, the landlord asks for more rent money because he’s almost out of cash to pay his own bills. I find the situation so ludicrous that I laugh and tell him to “forget it, I’m not paying you any more”.
Lana and I finally come to the decision that we need to move again. We take the train back to Calgary and move in with my parents.
Residence:
9a Street NE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
I suppose we all go through times when we wonder if we should have made different choices. Even then, we don’t always know years later whether we made the right ones or not. It’s a matter of facing, as best we can, whatever blessings and challenges Life brings our way, with the knowledge we have at the time.
SEPTEMBER
Since dad, mum, Lana, and I all feel very uncomfortable with our current living arrangements, some friends [Murray & Colleen] allow us to live in a house they've bought that needs refurbishing. Murray offers me the job of doing some construction in it [laying baseboards, if I remember correctly], but I soon learn I’m totally clueless [and inept] when it comes to building things with my hands.
Unfortunately, I still am. For example, once—later in our married life—when a leg came off our kitchen table, I got some screws, turned the table over, reset the leg, and screwed it on good and tight. Then, when I went to turn the table upright, I realized that not only had I screwed the leg on, but I had also screwed through the tabletop and fastened the corner of it to the floor...
Residence:
10 Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
One morning, Lana and I wake up in our bed to find a real estate agent and his clients wandering through the house. They haven’t yet got to our bedroom.
On another day a cat sneaks in and steals from the kitchen counter some pork chops that Lana is preparing for supper since there is no back door on the house.
I finally land another job, once again at the Calgary General Hospital, but this time in the Housekeeping Department.
My main job was cleaning and polishing floors and elevators during the early morning shift, three days a week and weekends.
A couple of things I recall:
■ Five minutes before coffee and lunch breaks, the other maintenance staff would suddenly ‘disappear’; then they’d return five minutes after lunch and coffee breaks. I guess that way they’d get extra ten-minute breaks.
■ One time I was in the hallway that lead to Emergency when, suddenly, a half-naked man in a hospital gown came running pell-mell down the hallway chased by a couple of nurses and police.
The City of Calgary eventually demolished the hospital on 4 October 1998.
1 SEPTEMBER
Monday
We find a two-story townhouse with a basement in northeast Calgary.
Residence:
Vista Courts NE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Our rent is $90 per month.
7 SEPTEMBER
Sunday
Coincidentally, my ex-girlfriend and singing partner, Valerie , phones on Lana's and my anniversary to see how I'm doing, and to ask if I'm still ‘that way’ [i.e., a Christian]. I tell her I am. Somewhat uncomfortably for both of us, we chat a bit more, and then say goodbye.
In early 1974, in my new-born Christian exuberance, I had mailed her various Jesus People pamphlets on how to get saved and become a Christian. And, as noted elsewhere, Valerie would die in 1990
9 OCTOBER
Thursday
Lana gives birth to our son, Micaal Nathan David in the Calgary General Hospital.
After Lana has birthed Nathan, the nurses tell me I can come back in about an hour once she has gone to the recovery room.
So, I go away for a coffee and eventually come back to ask the nurses where I can find my wife, Lana.
“Who?” One of the nurses checks her book. “We don’t have any Lana listed here.”
After a flurry of activity, we eventually discover that someone took Lana up to the second floor to recover!
Unknown to Lana, the Full Gospel Church fills our house with furniture and food. She comes home from the hospital with Nathan and is overcome with joy and gratitude for this blessing from God.
I obtain a Worker’s License from the Apostolic Church of Pentecost [the Full Gospel denomination headquarters].
As it was, I never did get to utilize it.
At that time, I was somewhat dogmatic in my Christian Pentecostal beliefs. However, after I began to minister in music later at other denominations, I realized that we can’t fit God into a one-size-fits-all package. Each of us views God in our own individual way. None of us will ever see God in the same manner. No matter if we follow the same doctrine or denominational beliefs, our personal view of God will always be unique.
DECEMBER
We receive a phone call from one of Lana's Bible school friends asking me to consider going to Niagara Falls to be a pastor at a Church of God congregation. Although not full time, I would also have to work part-time. I think about it, and then Lana and I both agree for several reasons that this would not be the right time to do such a thing.
Occasionally, throughout the coming years, we would often wonder if we should have taken the pastoral position in Niagara Falls.
This particular winter, we have a snowfall of a good three feet. Since I usually walk to the General Hospital to work, there is no way I am going to try and tramp through all that snow. Not surprisingly, I don’t get paid for that day because I don’t show up as they expect me to do, regardless of the weather.
The distance to the hospital was about six kilometers by car, but it was much shorter cross-country by foot in those days because the city hadn’t yet built the Deerfoot Trail.
This certainly turned out to be a year of several choices we had to make. Right or wrong, as I noted earlier, we did so with the understanding and knowledge we had at the time.
CHRISTMAS
Written, Composed, Arranged & Performed by Michael Woodhead
Copyright © 1991, 2021 by Michael Woodhead
(From The Star Child, a Christmas musical comedy drama in one act)
JESUS’ LOVE
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1975, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
(Melody first used for my EarthGirls song, 'Adele')
[Music only; vocals pending]
3 MAY
Friday
I buy a special gift book, write several comments in it, let Lana read it, and then when she gets to the last page, I ask her to marry me. She screams and says, “Yes!”
The same day, we write up a personal newsletter to send to our friends and acquaintances to tell them the good news.
23 MAY
Thursday
The Full Gospel Bible Institute writes to tell me they have accepted me into first year classes.
26 JUNE
Wednesday
My sister graduates from the School of Nursing at the Calgary General Hospital.
JULY
Lana and I send out wedding invitations.
20 JULY
Saturday
Lana pays our friend, Lloyd, $40 as down payment for rent on a house near to the Bible College in Eston.
24 AUGUST
Saturday
Lana attends a Trousseau Tea held for her.
25 AUGUST
Sunday
The Full Gospel Church bulletin announces our engagement.
31 AUGUST
Saturday
Lana travels to Toronto by herself to organize the wedding ceremony and reception.
3 SEPTEMBER
Tuesday
Lana has a wedding shower given by her sister.
I take the Greyhound bus to Toronto.
4 SEPTEMBER
Wednesday
Lana has a wedding shower from her friend, Mrs Hillis.
The week we married, there happened to be a Transit strike on in Toronto. I had to take a taxi to the airport to pick up the suits that had been flown down from Calgary for me and my best man.
7 SEPTEMBER
Saturday
2:00 p.m.
Lana’s father makes her cry when he drives her and her stepmother to the wedding service. He bitterly complains about having to pick up the wedding cake and gets really upset because he’s afraid it will fall over in the car. Lana’s stepmother tells him to stop making such a fuss.
While waiting for Lana to arrive for the ceremony, pastor Hope Smith prays while I and two other pastors [Laurie Price & Cameron Stevenson] stand with him. He finishes, and when Lana still isn’t here, he says, “Let’s pray again!”.
He does this about three times before we finally go out to begin the wedding ceremony.
Lana and I marry at Evangel Temple in Toronto.
Although we had a recording of the marriage ceremony, because the microphone was on the pulpit and we were in front of it, the only thing that could be heard distinctly on the cassette was the wedding song sung by one of Lana’s friends because the vocalist was standing behind the pulpit.
We married in Toronto because Lana originally thought that most of her family, friends, and acquaintances wouldn’t be able to make it out to Calgary. As it turned out, they could have.
At the wedding, I didn’t realize that Dean Patterson, my best friend of many years, had attended; otherwise, I would have asked him to be my best man. As it was, I had previously asked my sister’s husband to do the honors.
The flowers at our wedding came from a funeral the day before.
We hold the reception at Dixon Road Gospel Temple [now known as Abundant Life Assembly] at 5:30 pm.
At the reception, I think we disappointed a lot of guests because they had sandwiches and small desserts instead of hors d’oeuvres and a full course meal. However, Lana and I were on a very limited budget at the time and couldn’t afford anything extravagant.
Afterwards, though, we did enjoy a delicious supper and spent our honeymoon night at Howard Johnson’s Airport Hotel.
And I’m quite sure a lot of the other guests went out for additional meals, afterwards...
One of Lana’s Bible school friends shot the wedding and reception on an 8mm film.
It wasn’t until we received the reel in the mail several days later and viewed it that we found out he had accidentally superimposed our wedding on top of one of Lana’s friend’s wedding!
We were extremely disappointed and upset, as I’m sure the other married couple must have been, too, since they wouldn’t have received any filmed recording of their wedding.
We also didn’t get very many good wedding photos. We couldn’t afford a professional photographer, so my dad took pictures. Unfortunately, many of them turned out blurry or overexposed.
10 SEPTEMBER
Tuesday
Thanks to the generosity of a couple of Lana’s friends who pay for all our wedding gifts to be flown back to Calgary, we catch a plane.
■ My fare: $120.00
■ Lana’s fare: $99.65
21 SEPTEMBER
Saturday
With a few other friends to drive us and our belongings, Lana and I move to Eston, Saskatchewan, so that I can attend the Full Gospel Bible Institute.
Lana had previously graduated from a three-year course [1969-1971] at Eastern Pentecostal Bible College in Peterborough, Ontario.
Residence:
7th Avenue West
Eston, Saskatchewan, Canada
Our time spent at Eston in a little bungalow was nice.
It was here that we cooked our first duck from which Lana had neglected to remove the buckshot—I didn’t shoot it, the bird was given to us.
Our cat, Reuben, ended up going to and wandering around, the college until someone recognized him and brought him back.
The front end of the house was lower than the back, so you walked up or down a gradual incline from room to room depending on which way you went.
During that winter, there were fifteen-foot snowdrifts on both sides of the roads.
While I’m at school, Lana works at the local Co-op as a cashier.
During this time at F.G.B.I., I begin to lead worship and song services. Occasionally, a few people are healed, and I’m told that I have the anointing of God on my music and singing.
Although I understand the spiritual concept behind the ‘anointing of God’, I never did always perceive when it happened, nor did I try to make it happen. I don’t think one can do that. I believe it’s possible to create an atmosphere for healings and other miracles to happen [through preaching, song services, etc.], but the actual process of doing it is in God’s hands and time. There were occasions [as you will read later] when I felt led to hold a healing service, but overall, they were sporadic and unexpected.
20 DECEMBER
Friday
I receive my first semester report sheet.
PENELOPE
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright © 1965, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
A Fantasy Folk song
Christianity : 1974-1989
6 JANUARY
Sunday
During the evening service at Immanuel Church, I meet Olivia, an attractive young woman who invites me back to her room in a motel.
We have a couple of drinks, and then she asks me if I would like to have sex with her.
I reply, “Sure! I’d love to!”
After we have sex, she asks me if I’d like to go to her parents’ place with her to meet them.
I tell her I’d like to do that, too.
However, once we’re on our way [she drives], I soon find out that they apparently live on an acreage outside the city of Calgary.
Once there, I sleep overnight with her.
In the morning, her parents wake me early and tell me that Olivia is schizophrenic and that, for my own safety, I should probably leave.
As soon as possible.
Like, right now.
So, they give me an extra pair of socks to keep my feet warm. I get the rest of my winter clothes on, and then I leave and plod through the snow to the highway.
I begin to hitchhike back to Calgary.
First a car picks me up and takes me only a few miles. When I get out, I pray and ask God to have someone give me a ride who can take me all the way home.
It isn’t long before a truck stops and the driver says he can give me a ride all the way to Calgary if I want, but that I’ll have to sit in the cargo bed. I tell him I don’t mind.
So, with the freezing wind blowing around me, I thank God for answering my prayer, and huddle down under a truck blanket until I eventually arrive back at my parents’ house in the Bridgeland district.
Looking back on my experience with Olivia, I can see now that I obviously didn’t gain any sort of immediate self-control over the ‘temptation’ to have and enjoy sex. And soon, the gender confusion I faced as a teenager and young adult would follow me into my life as a Christian. Frankly, I still have reservations about the whole relationship between Christianity and sexuality, perhaps a conundrum that I may never be able to fully resolve in this life.
Some well-meaning [but misguided, I realize, now] Christians advise me to throw away any creative works I produced before getting saved because they were ‘of the devil’.
Although I did get rid of many of my earlier stories and artwork [much to my current regret], I just couldn't throw away my songs, and I held on to them [much to my current delight].
Those early months as a ‘Jesus People’ Christian were interesting ones for me.
■ I had no fear. I sensed a love for everyone, as evidenced by the fact that I boldly witnessed to a Hell’s Angel on a motorbike when he stopped to let me cross the road.
■ Another time, I went to a nightclub [I can’t remember why, but I might have been having supper with someone I knew] and the people I saw on the dance floor seemed like writhing snakes to me. That was a very strange experience.
I receive a card in the mail from DeDe to let me know that she’s going in the hospital, and that she has a bit of trepidation about moving back home.
I feel terrible, now, because I don’t remember why DeDe was going in the hospital, or why she was nervous about moving back with her mother. I never heard anything further, but I do hope everything went well.
8 MARCH
Friday
11:30 p.m.
While I’m having coffee at the White Spot restaurant, Charlotte, one of the waitresses, notices that I’m reading my Bible.
After she learns that I’m a Christian, she tells me she is, too, and wonders if I might be interested in coming with her to meet her roommate, also a Christian.
She calls, first, to make sure it’s all right. It is.
A little later, while waiting for Charlotte to finish her shift, the roommate telephones.
“She wants to know if we’re coming yet,” Charlotte says to me after she answers.
I raise my voice so the roommate can hear me over Charlotte’s phone: “Tell her to keep her beating heart still, we’ll be right over!”
A short time later, once we’re at their apartment, I meet Lana Charlotte Schneeberger.
I still remember walking into their apartment, looking to my left, and seeing this beautiful woman with dark black hair sitting there and smiling at me. Lana always likes to tell me that her hair wasn’t that black, but at the time, it’s the way it looked to me.
Later, I sing Keep Your Eyes on Jesus, Trust in Jesus, and With God All Things Are Possible to them.
On another day, while dining at Denny’s restaurant, I tell Lana quite a bit about my past life. She replies that whoever marries me will have a lot to forgive!
It isn’t long before we fall in love.
I don’t want to say it was ‘love at first sight’ with Lana, but I did fall hard for her and she for me very early on after we met.
25 MARCH
Monday
I write a short poem to Lana:
“You’re the inspiration of my life and,
quite possibly, you may become my wife
If the good Lord up above
Will let grow this heart-felt love for you”
At the time, we had aspirations of a singing ministry together, but that never happened because, for several reasons, Life interfered. However, except for a few rough spots, we have been married and happy together now for forty-eight years as of this writing [2022]. We’ve faced a lot of challenges as a family, as well as personally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and financially, and we’ve survived. Somehow, despite our failures at times, our faith in Jesus has always helped us through so much.
This year was also a time that I saw the Northern Lights directly over the city. I was walking to Lana’s apartment one night and looked up to see curtains of blue and green light shimmering across the sky. It was a beautiful, yet eerie, display of colour.
Since all my other Christian friends from the downtown Full Gospel Church seem to be doing it, I apply to the Full Gospel Bible Institute in Eston, Saskatchewan, in hopes that I can take some courses to further my Christian life and knowledge.
23 APRIL
Tuesday
I receive a letter that F.G.B.I. is considering my application.
28 APRIL
Sunday
I sing and speak at Marlborough Pentecostal Church which Lana helped to establish in 1973. My sermon topic is As It Was in the Days of Noah.
Still in search of my identity, I spell my first name ‘Micaal’.
I buy an engagement ring for Lana.
I’VE A FRIEND CALLED JESUS
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1974, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
Thanks to Valerie, I have two of my cartoons published in Furniture & Furnishings magazine.
While in Toronto, I contact various record companies again to see if I can garner any interest in my songs. Now, however, I grow so discouraged with not being able to do anything with my songs that I finally give up.
During this time, while I was away in Toronto [and unbeknownst to me], Mum decided to sell, give away, or get rid of not only my LP and 45rpm record collections [of unknown value], but also my Marvel comics collection [remember that?] which was worth approximately $250,000 by today's collecting standards. And I just read lately that the comic Amazing Fantasy #15 with the first appearance of Spider-Man [which I had] sold for over $3 million!
Valerie gets me a job in a small aluminum chair production factory run by her ex-husband.
A couple of memories I have from this place:
■ I was using a forklift to carry a bundle of pipes to another area. In my nervousness, I got confused about the pedal—to give it gas, you ease the pedal out; to reduce the amount of gas, push it in. After putting the forklift into reverse, I accidentally let the pedal out fast. The vehicle jerked backwards, and the whole bundle of pipes flew off the forklift blades and crashed to the floor, all of them bouncing and tumbling all over the place.
■ The tiny bathroom was filthy. Not with dirt or poop, but with smears of grease and oil—along with various graffiti—all over the walls, the sink, and the toilet.
Since the apartment is on the penthouse [12th] floor, it often gets quite hot inside the living-room, and many’s the time we close the window because the breeze blows the rank smell from the garbage bins on the main floor up the side of the building and into the apartment.
I come home from work one day, open the closet door to get some fresh sheets for the bed, and the corpse of Valerie’s cat tumbles out.
Apparently, it must have jumped in there the night before and had somehow smothered between the blankets.
I don’t really know what to do with it, so I put the stiff body of the cat into a pillowcase and send it thump-thump-thumping down the garbage chute. When she returns home and learns what happened, Valerie is not a happy woman.
Despite how much I love Valerie, nevertheless I feel very awkward living with her in her ex’s apartment and working for him as well.
Not only that, despite Valerie's love, support, and encouragement, I still feel extremely inadequate as a person especially since she has a job and I don’t.
Consequently, one day when she’s at work, I leave her an apologetic note and then I catch a Greyhound bus to Calgary.
A short while later, when the bus stops for a rest break in Barrie, Valerie pulls up in her car and begs me to return with her.
Hoping things will be better for us both, I do.
Nevertheless, a week later, still struggling with my fears and insecurities, I leave on the bus again.
This time, Valerie doesn't come after me.
I learned a good twenty-odd years after the fact that Valerie died in 1990. I haven’t yet found out the cause.
During this time, Valerie wrote Is It You or Is It Me? After reading the words to this again so many years later, I can see that she had a lot of [unspoken] insight into my personality and character.
AUGUST
I return to my parents’ new place in Calgary.
Residence:
9a Street NE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Inspired by the title of another Robert A Heinlein book, I write and compose the song, Glory Road.
Inspired by Marvel Comics' Sgt Fury & the Howling Commandos, I write an action-adventure novella called The Female Commandoes in which I write some rather lurid sex scenes. Somehow, mum manages to find a copy. She reads it and the explicitness shocks her. She can’t believe I could write such things. As a result, I don't get any encouragement as a writer from either of my parents.
Although I no longer have the original manuscript, I did later write a movie script based on the same idea. I called it, Amazon Squad.
SEPTEMBER
I find work as a shipper-receiver in the warehouse of Treck Photographic.
I enjoyed my time working there but got annoyed several times because the front desk never ordered enough 35mm film stock to fill photographers’ back-orders as well as enough for the new orders that came in. Consequently, new orders always become one- to two-week back-orders.
During the time I'm there, I meet a woman next door at Phoenix Press, and she inspires me to write the song, Anneke.
One day, once we get to know each other, Anneke gives me a Danish pornographic magazine called Color Climax.
Sexually excited by the explicit contents of this periodical, I send away to Denmark for further issues.
After the first one arrives and it more than meets my expectations, I feel confident enough to order another.
A couple of weeks later, I’m asked to come down to Canada Customs where the clerk confiscates the incoming booklet because ‘Canadian pornography laws won’t allow them in the country’.
Yet, somehow, the first one I ordered managed to make it through the postal system without any problems.
Exasperated at the laws, embarrassed by having the clerk flip through the explicit pages, and the fact that I wasted money on the magazine [and secretly believing the clerk will 'confiscate' it for himself], I don’t bother ordering anything else.
6 DECEMBER
Thursday
I appear as the 'Young Man' in the Factory Theatre West production of The Trial.
From the Friday, December 7th review by Jamie Portman
I befriend Debby, an actress in The Kidnappers play in which she performed the same night.
With me in the cast of The Trial is the young woman named Enid, whom I haven't seen for about two years. She originally auditioned for ‘The Silver Virgin’ singing group that Mary Ann and I tried to form.
Enid takes me to see several of her ‘Jesus People’ Christian roommates [DeDe, Sheryl, Ingrid, and Sandi], and their spirituality inspires me to write and compose Keep Your Eyes on Jesus .
A few days later, when I sing and play it for them, they can’t believe that I was able to write a song like that when I’m not even a Christian.
One night, when I go to visit them, only Ingrid is in the apartment. After we chat for a while, she suddenly asks me if I would fondle and squeeze her breasts. Although I more than gladly acquiesce to the invitation, I find her request a little difficult to comprehend since she's a Christian and, apparently from what I’ve heard and read, Christians aren’t supposed to do that sort of thing. This causes still more confusion for me.
23 DECEMBER
Sunday
In a service at the Full Gospel Church downtown, the youth pastor, 'Buster' Kennedy, abruptly comes down from behind the pulpit, lays his hand on my shoulder, and prays for me. I find it rather odd that he would do such a thing.
When I leave the church after the service, I suddenly experience an emptiness, a hollowness, a virtual void where my heart should be.
At a get-together afterwards, Enid asks me what's wrong with me since I don’t look very happy. I tell her how I feel, and she responds that I need to fill the emptiness with Jesus.
Consequently, following her helpful instructions, I pray and ask Jesus Christ to fill my heart and my life.
I become a Christian.
26 DECEMBER
Wednesday
During a Boxing Day service at Immanuel Church, pastor John Lucas asks those who would like to have more of what God has to offer to come forward.
I decide I would like that, and then I suddenly feel a gentle hand on my back pushing me out of the pew and up to the front of the church. I look quickly back and see no one behind me. Since I was sitting alone, there wasn’t anybody physically around me who could have nudged me like that.
Nevertheless, I let the pastor pray for me.
A moment later, I feel a surge of energy flood my body from my head to my feet and I begin speaking in tongues as I experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Following this, the pastor baptizes me in water.
After my baptisms, I and my new Christian friends often attended services at both the Full Gospel and Immanuel churches—Full Gospel on Sunday mornings for the preaching and teaching by pastor Frank Kosick, and Immanuel Church on Sunday nights for the singing and dancing in the Spirit.
Pastor Frank Kosick
When I arrive home and tell dad and mum that I've accepted Christ into my heart, they're very happy to hear the news. However, since they’re Baptists, they're not pleased to hear that I’m going to a church aligned with the Pentecostal denomination—that's just too ‘emotional’ for them. So, it seems, Christian or non-Christian, I still feel like I’m the 'black sheep' of the family.
IT’S JUST A DREAM
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1967, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
THERE IS NOTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1976, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
JANUARY
Based partly on Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land novel, and partly on various other religious and sacred works I've read and studied over the past four or five years, I begin to compile my own ‘bible’ of metaphysical and spiritual philosophy.
Basically, I borrow what I feel are the most positive affirmations and principles that I find in each belief, but which aren’t dogmatic, and list them topically.
Several of the hippie friends with whom I share my philosophy show a real interest, but due to lack of commitment from anyone, the 'Church of the Galaxy' that I envision never materializes.
Also, one of them manages to steal the 75-page treatise I write for it...
FEBRUARY
I meet and begin a creative relationship with Valerie McAleer.
A short time later, her sister, Melanie, joins us, and we begin to sing semi-professionally in various restaurants, hotels, lounges, parks, and nightclubs—places such as the York Hotel, Bobby Darin’s Lobster Haven, the Canadian Legion, and Boston Pizza, to name just a few. For a variety of reasons, Melanie later drops out, so Valerie and I continue as a duet.
EARLY SPRING
One day, after Yvonne and I make love in my apartment, Valerie phones to tell me she’s on her way over to talk to me.
Without letting either woman know what’s happening, I quickly make up a false reason for Yvonne to leave and ask her to get dressed quickly.
I send her out a door at one end of the apartment building just as Valerie enters through a door at the other end.
Valerie and I chat about music for a while, and then she tells me how much she cares for me. I tell her the feeling is mutual, and then we have our first sexual tryst.
Shortly after this, Yvonne and I saw less and less of each other until, eventually, we lost touch altogether.
Valerie and I start an intimate relationship [even though I still yearn to have Yvonne at the same time].
It is said that one’s first sexual experience—positive or negative—will have a profound effect on one’s psychological state.
In my case, I certainly found that to be so.
Since Yvonne was the first woman with whom I had penetrative sex, and the experience was a wonderful one, I found I could not get her out of my mind for many years.
After we were apart, I yearned so much to get back with her that I often took walks to her house where I would hang around outside, hoping to get even a glimpse of her.
So, I believe it’s true that a piece of our heart and soul leaves and melds with whomever we share our first sexual experience and, for me at least, other such encounters after that.
I arrive late for work too many times [from sleeping in, apparently] and I'm fired from the General Hospital laundry.
I receive an encouraging letter regarding my music:
■ “While reviewing the tapes already on file, I listened to yours. It was very promising, and I hope that anytime you have new material ready, you will give us the opportunity of hearing it.”
—Terry McManus
Century II Studios
It baffles me today why I never followed up on so many requests for further material. Obviously, most of the record companies were interested in hearing more, but for some reason, I never sent them anything else.
JUNE
Valerie moves to Toronto to take up a position as Assistant Editor for Furniture & Furnishings magazine.
A few days later, she phones and invites me to come down and join her. So, I leave my apartment, drop off most of my stuff with Mum and Dad, and catch the Greyhound bus to Toronto to be with her. We live in a penthouse apartment for which her ex-husband pays the rent.
Residence:
Jane Street, Penthouse #3
Downsview, Ontario, Canada
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE (My Sweet Yvonne)
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright © 1972, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
I’VE A FRIEND CALLED JESUS
Written, Composed & Arranged by Michael Woodhead
Copyright ©1974, 2024 by Michael Woodhead
[Music only; vocals pending]
Sometime during this year, I write Quest for the Silver Virgin, a science fiction musical.
SPRING
I move out on my own once again to an apartment block.
Residence:
North Park Terrace
4 Avenue NE
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Stan, a drummer I meet at a party, comes to my apartment, and persuades me to have sex with him. We have a bit of intimate fondling, but when it comes to any kind of penetration—and just as it happened with Matt at the bowling alley—I find it difficult to let Stan go ‘all the way’ with me. Although disappointed, he doesn’t pursue it any further. He leaves, and I will never see him again.
I go to see a re-release of The Christine Jorgensen Story, and I realize I can identify once again with so much of what s/he went through growing up. I leave the movie feeling that I really need to do something definite about my sexual identity. A few days later, I make an appointment with Dr Stewart Meikle at the Foothills Hospital’s new sex reassignment clinic. I have several appointments with him, and after a battery of tests and interviews, he believes I’m simply a ‘highly sensitive’ straight male because of my assorted creative interests.
Although his conclusions assuaged some of the confusion, I still had—and would continue to have—misgivings about my sexual identity.
SUMMER
I'm let go from my job at Mountain View Bowl because, according to Leigh, I appear to be ‘daydreaming’ too much.
But shortly, I find work in the laundry department at the Calgary General Hospital.
Occasionally, when I tend to daydream while sorting laundry, one of my co-workers throws dirty diapers at me.
During my time working in the laundry, I meet Yvonne, one of the women who work in the linen department.
In Yvonne’s basement suite just kitty-corner to the hospital, her mother—after having met me—privately asks her daughter if I’m gay because, apparently, a lot of my mannerisms are somewhat ‘effeminate’. Yvonne replies that she doesn’t think I am.
Looking back on those days, that might explain why several gay guys propositioned me, even though I didn’t even realize that I was acting ‘effeminate’ until Yvonne later told me.
She inspires me to write the songs Yvonne, and Where Have You Gone.
I later used her middle name, Carlinea, as the basis for the main character in my White Painted Woman novel, A Time to Be Born, a Time to Die.
While I’m working at the hospital, management moves me from sorting dirty laundry on the second floor to running the large washing machines on the first floor. The fellow I work with smokes a pipe. I think it smells so nice that I take up smoking one for a short time. After a few weeks, the fad eventually wears off.
FALL
One afternoon at Yvonne’s apartment, she asks me how many girlfriends I’ve had.
I tell her.
Then she asks how many of them I’ve had sex with.
After a moment’s pause, I tell her the truth —"None. I’m still a virgin…”
She gives me a startled look, and then she says, “Seriously? Oh, this is too good of an opportunity to pass up! Come on!”
She grabs me by the hand and pulls me into her bedroom.
A few minutes later, following her precise instructions and delicious ministrations, the loss of my virginity becomes a mind-blowing and beautiful experience for me, and more than I ever expected.
Yvonne and I continued our sexual relationship — with no real expectations from either of us — on and off for several months until early 1973.
After I do research from library books when I become interested in writing a book about Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, I send letters to a few of the places I know about that treat this anomaly:
■ Clarke Institute of Psychiatry
■ The University of Goteborg Psychiatric Research Centre
■ The Statens Seruminstitut Hormone Department
However, in their replies, they can only point me to other books and pamphlets.
After all that, I lost interest and this writing project never materialized.
I return to my interest in classical music, and devour the operas of Richard Wagner, particularly the Nibelungenlied trilogy.
I write and create storyboards for three short heroic fantasy screenplays—Daughter of Darkness, Sword of the Hunter, and Song of the Siren—all based on Greek mythology, and in the vein of the ‘Hercules’ movies I remember watching back in the mid-sixties.
Although I have photocopies of these screenplays, the originals might still be found in the pamphlet section of the W R Castell Library.
I get an opportunity to participate in another sexual threesome, this time with an Eleanor and her husband whom I meet while playing my guitar and singing at Calgary’s Memorial Park. After the evening of lovemaking at their apartment, she quietly tells me I am a better lover than her husband. I’m flattered but feel sorry for him. When I return home, somehow Mum manages to find out from me what happened.
I do recall, now, Mum really grilled me on my whereabouts the night before and why I didn’t come home. Eventually, I told her. She was shocked, to say the least. “Michael, that’s adultery!” She then went into a tirade of Biblical verses designed to show me the error of my ways.
Another woman I meet, Shannon—with whom I will also reconnect years later—will inspire me to write the song, Shannon.
WINTER
I write and compose a three-act musical fantasy called Island of Children .
After reading some of my older writings for the first time in many, many years, I can really see how much Stan Lee’s [Marvel Comics] storytelling and Shakespeare’s language influenced me. I have since rewritten them somewhat, revised the language, and published them.
As I continue to market my songs to record producers and publishers, I now use the pseudonym ‘Lord Michael Sheehan Wagner’.
The last name was influenced of course by my interest in Richard Wagner; the 'Lord' comes from an interest in swords'n'sorcery, and 'Sheehan' (pronounced 'Shawn') just a name I liked at the time
I have a one-night stand with Vicki who wants to have sex with the lights off because she’s embarrassed about the amount of hair on her body even though I tell her it doesn’t bother me.
NOVEMBER
I have a short sexual relationship with Sandy, a hypersexual woman [colloquially known as a ‘nymphomaniac’].
DECEMBER
I meet and have a short relationship with a woman named Elsie.
23 DECEMBER
Saturday
My sister marries.
Elsie and I attend the wedding.