my education continues

On our way home from Michigan, I did not want to run the south Chicago/northwest Indiana gauntlet, so we wen't down 69. We had thoughts of stopping by the Comer's, but got away from Lansing too late to make that work. As we came near Angola, Indiana, we stopped at a rest stop. To me, Angola means Buck Lake Ranch. As a kid in the 50's that was one outing that seemed to be the highlight of the summer when we got to go. Georgia even with there with us at least one time. At the rest stop was a guy cleaning up. I asked him if he lived around there and he said that he had just returned. So I asked him if Buck Lake Ranch was still active and as it was. He assured me that it was. That really brought me some warm fuzzies. I remember all 4 of us wearing shirts alike that were either boughten or sometime mom would make them. Took picnic lunch and watched "the show" with Harry Smythe as the master of ceremonies. So I found the website and find that I am not alone in my querie. http://www.bucklakeranch.com/. That was neet, but wasn't my education. As I grew up, there was a term for something that was big or bad or noteworthy, called a doozy. A black eye was often a doozy as was a wreck. As we passed Auburn, Indiana which is the home of the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum http://www.auburn-in.com/ there was a billboard that said, "It is a Duesy" with pictures of the vintage Duesenberg auto. It hit me right between the eyes. For the next 40 miles, I'm thinking, "there is something else that I've had wrong all my life. Of course a Duesy is something really noteworthy because it is being compared with the Duesenberg automobile which was noteworthy, though short lived. Well, I'm glad that I have that straight now. I wonder how many other people have this misconception. After all there is nothing I know of that would be a doozy, right?" Couldn't wait to get to the computer to check it out. So here is where my education came. There does seem to be some confusion over the term. You can find it as "doozy" or doozie, or "doosy". http://wandersponders.blogspot.com/2006/10/doosy.html But their doesn't seem to be a concensus, if fact, some folks even had the Idea that it related to the Duesenberg, but the word was apparently coined before the automobile was developed. If you have any interest, you can read http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-doo2.htm This guy says it is a bastardization of daisy, which seems to me even more out of line, but what do I know. This site http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doozy even plays the middle with the following definition:

Getting a little more "official, Merriam's Webster says:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doozy
Now that I've found out that all possible versions of the truth seem to be acceptable, I guess my life will not change over this little incident. I need to ask my cousin Mike who lives in the Auburn area which version he uses. I expect that I will have about the same conviction about that as I will have toward the election this fall. Which one is the best, or is there any difference???