Bad postcard of the week:

Iron Mountain's 'Big John' looking very little
From:  The Grand Rapids Press

  I can only guess that the photographer has some unnatural fear of mines – or giant miners.

I think the intended subject of this week’s wonderfully bad postcard is “Big John,” billed as the world’s largest miner. It’s either John, or the sky, or the dirt road, or the flashy “open sign” or maybe even the camper. We just don’t know.

I can’t authenticate his claim as the world’s largest miner, especially after learning about the smack down over who has the world’s largest pecan. Again, we just don’t know.

The postcard back yields few answers: “Iron Mountain Iron Mine. Guided underground tours. Educational, exciting, entertaining. This is the view a visitor sees as he approaches the Iron Mountain Iron Mine, one of America’s Greatest Mine Attractions. This Mine is visited by thousands of people each year from all over the world.”

What that should say is that this is the view – from Wisconsin!

Seriously, Casey Kasem used to read long-distance dedications for people who were standing closer than the photographer was to this sign.

The always wonderful RoadsideArchitecture.com tells us that Big John is a 40-foot wooden sign built in the 1960s, and that it has been repainted six or seven times since then. It was refinished with marine plywood to keep it from peeling.

I’m wondering why the photographer didn’t wait until part of Big John wasn't obscured by the camper, but frankly, that’s among the least of his sins.

Colleague Angela Wittrock donated this card after visiting the mine this summer, and said the tour was pretty neat. The mine itself was operated from 1870 until 1945 – about 20 years before Big John appeared.

Reader contribution

Closer to home, educator and historian Dave Britten sent this exciting view of the majestic fountains inside Grand Rapids' Woodland Mall. I’m guessing that this beauty was issued not long after the mall opened in 1968.

“Nothing says more about a town than a sterile photo of the inside of a shopping mall,” he wrote.

Sterile? This one’s got actual people and a Sears and a Kresge! Who wouldn't want to slap a stamp on this baby and tell loved ones in distant lands that you have a new place to buy socks, and were soothed by water tossed in the air?