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After a year split between UW Laramie and Sheridan College, I bailed out and joined the Army in May of 1980. (In October of 1979 down in Laramie, someone introduced me to AMWAY and so I didn't concentrate on my studies too much because I knew that my first million bucks was "already in the mail" to me. It didn't show up.... much to my dismay and consternation. "You mean to tell me success takes work and effort and time??!?") I knew that I needed to grow up a little so I took a 3-year vacation courtesy of Uncle Sam. Jim Collingwood and I enlisted in the US Army as Infantrymen. I spent time in Ft. Campbell, Kentucky as a driver for a major and an office worker, and then in Germany guarding the Pershing Missiles. (These were portable nukes on a flatbed.) After my discharge (May '83), I bummed around for the summer and ended up in Houston visiting my brother Tim and an army buddy from Germany. My brother had converted from Catholicism 5 years prior and had been witnessing to me ever since, and after 5 years, everything he had showed me from the Bible made a lot more sense than what I had been taught all of my life in the Catholic Church, and I was born again in my car on the way home from Houston and everything about my life changed (music, goals, friends, motivations, language, thoughts) for the better.
(Just as an aside: all of us are at least as close to the end of our lives as we are to the beginning. If you don't know for sure that you will spend eternity in Heaven, drop me a note [tjhedd@sbcglobal.net] and I will simply show you from the Bible how you may know that. I won't preach at you or talk to you about church or anything: just what God says about Heaven. No pressure, no gimmicks: just straight Scripture. It's Heaven or Hell, and He leaves the choice up to us.)
I got involved in Grace Baptist Church there in Sheridan. (For those of you still in town, Pastor Anderson is a great man. Go see him.) After a year there, I felt that I should go to Bible college and I came out here to Hammond, Indiana (a Chicago suburb) to Hyles-Anderson College and First Baptist Church of Hammond. I graduated in August '88 with a Pastoral Theology degree. Yes, you did read that right: Hedderman is an ordained Baptist Preacher. I met my wife in college (she's a Preacher's kid from southern Minnesota), and we were married in December of '88. (By the way, just for the record, she is the greatest wife in the history of the world and, 20+ years later, we are still ridiculously happy.) We had our first child, Katie, 13 months later, and between pregnancies and bills, it took me 6 more years to get my wife done with her last 3 semesters of her Elementary Ed teaching degree. During that time I drove a dump truck.
During a Senior appointment with our pastor at the time of Carolyn's graduation, Dr. Jack Hyles, offered me a job at our church's high school, Hammond Baptist HS. So, from the fall of '94 until the summer of '09, I taught there. Mostly I did lower math courses (Algebra 1/2, 1, and 2, Consumer Math), but also did English 9 & 10, US History, karate, and Bible too, and added Drivers' Ed to my repertoire. This summer, I got downsized and just recently landed a job marketing home health care to Medicare patients.
Carolyn worked at Hyles-Anderson College for several years as a nurse (she was an LPN when she came here to school), and then transferred over to Hammond Baptist Grade School as the kindergarten secretary, yearbook editor, and assistant school nurse.
I am a part-time plain-clothes armed security guard; this fall, hopefully, I will earn my 1st degree black belt in American Kenpo Karate (9+ years after my first lesson). We have 4 children: Katie is in her sophomore year in the dorms at the college we both graduated from (15 miles away from home, majoring in Secondary Ed) [her big recent news is that she has been chosen to represent the college next summer in a vocal touring group]; Jenny just graduated HS and is attending Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, FL studying nursing; Joshua is a HS junior; and my little munchkin, Rachel, is in 5th grade. I teach Sunday School every week. I've got a class of 9th grade boys, Carolyn helps me in there with attendance and record keeping and so forth. Our pupils are from one of the rougher suburbs.
I fancy myself to be an amateur carpenter: at least I'm retrimming and remodeling our house as I get time and money. I also am a big reader. (If any of you also like to read, I've kept a list for the last couple of years of what I've read, and my opinion of the book. I'm over 200 books in about the last 2.5 years. If you'd like a copy of my list, email me.)
We laugh a lot here. I don't know how you all remember me (I have a hard time remembering those HS years at times -- I hate getting old), but I think in school I was always somewhat happy-go-lucky, but I definitely am quick with a joke and a laugh now. I told the kids in my class at the HS that I wouldl be the class clown, not them. The teenagers generally know better than to smart off to me as I am absolutely lethal with a comeback.
I absolutely love hot sauce (as long as it tastes good.) When I go to a Mexican restaurant, I tell the waitress to "bring me the stuff that YOU think is too hot." They look at me like I'm crazy, but it gets me something close to what I like. I told the Mexican girls in my classes at the high school to bring me samples of anything that their grandmas made at home, and they brought me stuff and couldn't believe that I didn't think that was that hot. (By the way, if you remember, my dad owned a restaurant down on South Coffeen Avenue [Blue Jay Chik Inn] for years, and now on that property is a mexican place [Los Agaves]. They have some seriously good salsa. Two years ago, when we were in Sheridan, my son and I ate 2 bowls full of it before our meals came. I was crying from the hotness, but neither of us could stop eating it.) My family teases me that they can always tell when I make dinner because I sprinkle dried red peppers in it. Oh, I also love to cook.
All of us Hammond Heddermans are absolute DIE-HARD Chicago Cubs fans. My wife corrupted all of the kids so they all are Minnesota Vikings fans. (When the Bears play the Vikings I watch upstairs and the rest of them watch downstairs.)
We will just stay here in Hammond as we finish rearing our kids and wait for the grand-babies to show up.
