Bad postcard of the week:

Rule violators in Holland's Tulip Time
From:  The Grand Rapids Press

It was Tulip Time in West Michigan, which means I have to try making fun of this delightfully bad postcard and not offend the fine folks of Holland.

This, as you can imagine, has been problematic in the past.

Once upon a time, my experiences in the Tulip City were not good ones. We were getting hopelessly lost, enduring excruciatingly long swim meets in the aquatic center – often after getting lost – and were unable to find an acceptable chain restaurant for lunch.

But we’re friends now. The Holland Museum last year had a wonderful postcard exhibit. There was a fun art fair in the park across the street where I obtained a cool Statue of Liberty Christmas ornament and a darned good corn dog.

That’s a pretty good day.

So I tread lightly with this week’s postcard, which attempts to show us the traditional pre-parade street-sweeping, but without the traditional appearance from the governor or even Ted Nugent.

The back reads: “Street Scrubbing – In Holland, Michigan, at ‘Tulip Time’ in mid-May, young and old alike dress in their native Dutch costumes to participate in the ritual of scrubbing the streets. This, together with Dutch dances, parades, windmills, tulips and traditional Dutch hospitality, creates one of the country’s outstanding Spring-time events.”

Now, I know what you might be thinking. This seems like a perfectly good postcard. Don’t we have a toll booth or overpass to poke fun at?

But let’s look more closely.

First, we’re having cropping issues. Poor Mrs. Vandersma is painfully sliced, especially considering all the dead space in the other side. And Mr. Vandersma looks like he was dragged into all of this against his will.

But, wait! Everyone else in clomping down the street in his or her native Dutch wooden shoes – a parade rule – and Mrs. Vandersma is wearing her sneakers! Busted.

Looks like a footwear faux pas.

Look, if you’re not going to wear the authentic wooden shoes, you might as well dress like a pirate and crash the kiddie parade. There are rules here.

Little Mikey knows the rules. Look at him there in his stroller. And you can tell it’s an old postcard because there are no cup holders on that stroller, and it’s smaller than an SUV. How we kids of Boomers survived is a mystery.

Little Mikey has cool shoes.

Back to Mikey. He’s showing off his little wooden shoes, knowing what awaits the Vandersmas once their footwear faux pas is discovered. And he’s got his little broom. Mikey might be coasting through the parade, but at least he’s doing his part to keep the street clean.

Except that he’s not sweeping, he’s chewing on his broom. Mikey, just because the broom handle tastes like a windmill cookie doesn't mean you can gnaw on it. There has to be a rule against that, too.

So, what seems like a nice little scene of celebrating Dutch ancestry is actually an inter-generational display of reckless disregard for the rules