Bad postcard of the week: Plenty of parking in St. Simons Island, Ga.

Hey, is that John Smoltz driving away?

I've been able to learn that St. Simons Island in Georgia is a beautiful coastal village with several interesting and historical features and, apparently, is the home to some famous people.

But all we learn from this week’s bad postcard is that there is plenty of parking.

The back cryptically reads: “SHOPPING CENTER And central point of activity St. Simons Island, Ga.”

No fair! That’s practically taunting us by offering so little information.

The photo reveals that our nameless shopping center does indeed seem to have some activity – and plenty of parking.

But we only see one store – a place called Maxwell’s. Maxwell’s must be a pretty cool store to draw this much traffic on such a nice day.  I have no idea what the store sold – it’s not there any more.

You’d think that a postcard called “SHOPPING CENTER” show us more places of commerce, but that’s just one of the problems.

It appears we have some cropping issues. I’m assuming the black car at the bottom is not parked but pulling away – the driver no doubt disappointed in the lack of shopping options. Or, the diver doesn't park well and stops anywhere, like some Michigan folks do when snow covers the yellow lines.

Or maybe he's just worried about being late for Rally Day.

We do see some nice trees and water well off in the distance.

But mostly, we get asphalt – lots of asphalt.

When the asphalt to stores and water and trees ratio leans heavily to the asphalt, it’s a sign of trouble.

I had to know more about this place with so much parking. Turns out St. Simons Island has some interesting history.

First, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, performed missionary work on the island. He was despondent and returned to England because he couldn't convert anyone, and wrote that islanders had more tortures from their environment than he could describe for hell.

I’m assuming he meant the summer temperatures and hurricanes and not the lack of shopping or abundance of parking.

Lumber form the island was used to make the USS Constitution, better known as “Old Ironsides” because cannonballs bounced off its oak planking.

The island was once cleared to make way for cotton plantations, known for its long fiber Sea Island Cotton.

Today, St. Simons Island is home to a number of prominent athletes including Michigan native John Smoltz and Adam Wainwright, he of the soul-crushing curveball that fooled Carlos Beltran for the final out of the 2006 NCLS. Apparently they mingle with former NFL star Jim Brown, a bunch of golfers and former governmental leaders and anchormen real -- Bob Schieffer – and imaginary – Ron Burgundy.  

Maybe just one of those guys can send us a newer postcard so we can see what store replaced Maxwell’s.

Here's some postcard stories from the MLive days.