Bad postcards of the week:

Plenty of parking in Pittsburgh
From:  The Grand Rapids Press

 Maybe the problem with this week’s bad postcard is that it’s misnamed.

Instead of saying, “Pittsburgh International Airport,” this should be called “Parking Lots of Pittsburgh International Airport.”

This week we’re proving that while the 1950s and 1960s were the golden era of awful postcards, the producers of today are up to the challenge.

I spent a fair amount of time in airports last week and booked another adventure for next week, so I've got flying on my mind.

The back reads: “The new Pittsburgh International Airport opened to the public on Oct. 1, 1992. This 12,080-acre complex is the third-largest airport in the USA.”

Note to photographers: We don’t have to include all 12,080 acres in the shot.

Somewhere beyond the rows and rows of cars, you can almost make out the airport, and even five planes. I confess that I needed to greatly enlarge the photo to see them.

I just think a postcard of an airport should be dominated by the terminal or planes, though it is pretty impressive that there are still some spaces available in the economy lot.

Pittsburgh really does have a nice airport. We spent many a layover there when it was a USAir hub.

The kids liked it because it had a big play area, and I liked it because it seems like it’s got more stores than your average mall. Best of all, the stores were required to sell their wares at “street prices” instead of “airport prices.” Yes, I did pay $9 for a bagel and Diet Coke last weekend, why do you ask?

On the scale of absurdity, airport prices are somewhere just below “ballpark prices” and “movie prices.” The top of that scale would be “college textbook prices,” of course.

Now, here's the story behind the postcard. I found the name of the photographer on the back, and had a nice conversation with Dan Amerson.

Amerson said the card was produced back in 1993, and was one of his first. The airport needed a card, and he didn't have an opportunity to shoot a nice photo from the air.

"I climbed up on a hill to get that one," he said. "But with that parking lots it looks like it could be any Wal-Mart."

Amerson gets points for being a good sport and dealing with my postcard questions, and some of his other cards are pretty neat. He even made the Pennsylvania Turnpike look interesting!

Reader contribution

Alan Stamm has the right idea – buildings and planes.

At least it works in theory.

The linen postcard era, generally from the 1930s to the 1950s, is my favorite, often providing us spectacular artwork.

But, as Alan discovered, not all the time. He offered this card of Love Field in Dallas.

“It's like a novice artist's first try on the opening day of a community ed class,” he wrote. “Makes me imagine one air traffic controller saying to another: ‘We've got a jumbo coming in" or "We may not be ready for Boeing's new jet.’”

I’d say we either have really, really big plane landing on the roof of a tiny, tiny terminal. Or, maybe, just some perspective problems.