Mystery Trucker Adopts Nursing Homes

His postcards aren’t fancy and their messages aren’t deep. But the mysterious missives from a truck driver known as “Heavy Duty” have residents of a Nebraska nursing homes eagerly awaiting the next day’s mail.

“We look forward to his cards and wonder when he will drop us a card again. They are so interesting to see the different states he’s going through,” said Ida Kramer, 77, who lives at Schuyler Nursing Center in Schuyler, a town of 4,100 about 50 miles west of Omaha.

For months and even years, postcards signed “Heavy Duty” or “The Nebraska Trucker” or “Bob H.” have been arriving at three nursing homes from New York, Washington, Alabama and other states in the East, South and Midwest.

“It’s really a beautiful state,” one card said of Alabama. “It has a lot of industry and good people.”

In other cards, the trucker wrote about changing his tires and passing a driver’s test.

At the Schuyler nursing home, activities director Dorothy Zwick has formed a Heavy Duty fan club and keeps a scrapbook of the 18 cards received since May. A sign outside says: “Truckers Come and Go; Stop, Heavy Duty, and Say Hello.”

“I kind of figure him to be a big fat guy,” said Kramer, one of 70 residents. “Some truckers are that way, you know. They do a lot of sitting, don’t get much exercise.”

Heavy Duty also writes to the Mount Carmel Home in Kearney, a south-central Nebraska city of 22,000, and to Wilber Nursing Home in Wilber, a town of 1,600 about 40 miles south of Lincoln.

Residents speculate that he sees the nursing homes from the highway. Others think he has relatives in each home.

“It makes them feel good that somebody is thinking of them and caring enough to let them know what is going on in the world,” said Tish Sigler, social services director at Mount Carmel, which has 76 residents.

Heavy Duty’s first card to the Schuyler home summed up his motives:

“Hi, just trying to send a little bit of the USA to anyone interested. As both my parents used to be in a rest home, I would visit and notice some people never had much company. Just maybe somebody will appreciate these cards. I don’t live in Schuyler, but not too far away. Heavy Duty.”

The trucker first wrote to Mount Carmel in 1989 and added Schuyler and Wilbur last spring.

A card sent from Providence, R.I., on Aug. 26, 1990, informed Mount Carmel residents that Heavy Duty was missing his wedding anniversary:

“I married a pretty girl from Pleasanton, 22 years ago today. Needless to say, I’m 1,500 miles from home. Guess I’ll have to kiss the bride later.”

Sigler figured out the trucker’s identity when his aunt began stopping by to gather up his postcards, but she keeps the secret because he wants it that way.

His aunt, who gave her name only as Angeline, said Heavy Duty used to write letters to her husband at Mount Carmel. “His uncle was so proud of the cards that he shared them with other residents,” she said.

When his uncle died in 1989, the trucker started writing to everybody in the home.

Heavy Duty is an independent trucker in his 50s, has a wife and three children and lives in York, a town of 7,700 west of Lincoln, Angeline said.

Zwick said the trucking industry should encourage all drivers to write to nursing homes.

But making Heavy Duty’s kindness official might tarnish its charm, said Nance Kirk, editor of Nebraska Trucker.

“It isn’t the same as though somebody just took you under their wing,” Kirk said.