When things were ducky and daisy

If it’s true that the key to happiness is having something to look forward to, you’ve got no worries because we’re in the midst of the triple crown of summer festivities, the trifecta of fun and food, you might say.

It’s said that good things come in threes, and the Kelly Fiesta last weekend was the first of this triumvirate. Next week is New Mexico Tech’s big 4th of July blowout, but before that is Magdalena’s Annual Frontier Days all day Saturday.

What started out seven years ago as a renovation of the Box Car Museum has mushroomed into a full-blown festival celebrating the heritage of the Old West and the history of Magdalena, a living history of frontier days. The Box Car Museum, once the property of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe RR, had been fixed up with artifacts and photographs, with one end designed as a faux mine entrance representing the miners’ experience in the Magdalena Mountains.

Throughout the day, there will be historical activities and exhibits, as well as a host of vendors selling their wares. Territorial family entertainment.

While we in the 21st Century are seemingly preoccupied with entertainment, what with all our wall-sized TVs and i-things, I was wondering what people in these parts did for entertainment in Territorial New Mexico of the 1800s. Other than the occasional Saturday night barn dance, I guess they would’ve had to make their own music at home, sitting around with neighbors strumming a banjo or twangin’ away on a jaw harp.

0h, right, I’ve been told by oldtimers there were the traveling hoochie-coochie shows and, heaven forbid, those whispered houses of ill repute. Those bygone days are what Magdalena’s Frontier Festival is all about, except maybe for the hoochie-coochie shows and so-called “soiled doves.”

Suffice it to say, life in frontier days was straightforward.

When folks were neighborly. When someone was only as good as their word.

And, most importantly, those words were spoken IRL.

Without hashtags and smileys.

I hate to say it, but I’ve been putting in too much screen time and have gotten caught up in the shorthand world of my grandchildren. Every other week they come up with an ever-increasing string of new words and shorthand, such as NBD (No Big Deal) and GOAT (Greatest of All Time).

I know, I know, it’s only been a year or so since I brought this up, but in that time there’s a whole new batch of slang stuff that you need to know to fit in with today’s teenagers. There’s WYA (Where You At?), ofc (Of Course), Send me (Gen-Z version of LOL), Extra (exaggerated, overblown), Delulu (delusional), Lit (genuine), Gassing Up (excessive praising), Bop (a good song) and yes, Woke (socially conscious).

It seems each generation feels the need to create its own language, give old words new meanings, and generally make it difficult for the previous generation to know what they’re saying.

That said, there are those once-trendy phrases and terms that stick around. If you watch movies from, say, the 1930s, you can catch dialogue containing popular slang of the day, which have remained with us for almost 100 years. How about these: booze, weed, babe, grifter, kibosh, shake a leg, and “yo!” They’ve been with us since the 1930s.

On the other hand, sock it to me, outtasight, right on, cats and chicks, rap session, neat-o, bag, dig it, boogie down … I don’t think I’ve heard anybody work those phrases into a sentence recently.

Back to the Frontier Festival … a look into some of the old ways, and I mean older than old-school. We’re talking homesteader days. Pre-electricity days.

Back when a feller was good for his word. Back when wireless might’ve meant barbed-wireless. Back when canned goods were called airtights, and a pack of cigarettes was called a pack of tailormades. Back when Coca-Cola was its original recipe. And I mean, original, original recipe.

Speaking of a feller’s words, here we go again with more long-gone terminology. Words used on the frontier are mostly forgotten, but maybe some should come back. For instance, when something was the best, you’d say it was ‘crack.’ You’d say ‘bettermost’ instead of ‘better.’ Daisy meant something was excellent, and you’d say you were just ‘ducky’ over your best gal.

On the other hand, the 1800s also gave us some old reliables that are still around:

Dude

Giddy-up

Fair to middlin’

Fixin’ (to)

Get a wiggle on

High-tail

Hold your horses

No-how

Plumb, as in “pert near but not plumb.”

Magdalena has gone through both glory days and hard times and if the Frontier Festival - or should I say frontier whoop-dee-doo - is anything like previous years, then it should be all it’s “cracked up to be.”

So to speak.