Connie Long, Tim Long, and Claire Coté

[00:02] CLAIRE COTU00E9: My name is Claire Coté I'm 41 years old. It's March 25, 2023. We're in Taos, New Mexico, at the library. I'm here interviewing my parents, Timothy and Connie Long. I am Connie Jean Donald Long. I'm 72. It's March 25, 2023, and we're in Taos, New Mexico, and I'm here with my husband, Tim, and my daughter, Claire.

[00:41] CONNIE LONG: My name is Tim Long, and I'm 71 years old. Today is March 25, 2023. We are at the Taos Public Library in Taos, New Mexico, and I'm here being interviewed by my daughter, Claire Coté And I'm with my beloved Connie.

[01:10] CLAIRE COTU00E9: I'm really happy to be here with both of you guys today. I wanted to interview you for a long time, and this was a wonderful incentive, so I wasn't sure what question to ask first, but I thought this was an interesting one. When I saw the great questions, it just kind of was a little bit. It intrigued me so very briefly, how would you describe me and how would you describe yourselves as setting the scene for each other and for our future listeners?

[01:44] CONNIE LONG: Go for it.

[01:46] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Okay. That's gonna be emotional.

[01:56] CONNIE LONG: Okay. All right, well, I'll jump in here a little bit and say that, you know, you are our firstborn child, and so that is significant. And I think that as parents of the firstborn, we don't really know what it's going to be like. So, you know, we're just trying to figure that out. And so now almost 40 years have gone by, and, you know, we're happy, proud, joyful to be with you here, but also that you live, and you and your husband and kids live near us. So, you know, that's how I describe you. I guess you want to add to that.

[03:06] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Along with what Tim just said. Becoming a parent is such a huge change, and you realize how much it makes you grow and opens your heart right away, and you will do anything to protect or guide or, you know, for the well being of that new person. And it for me, it came right in with the first meeting you. So that's where my mind goes in response to that question, is that it expanded my understanding of the human experience so much. And then, like Tim just expressed, it's been so great to, you know, watch you grow and achieve. And now that you have chosen to live near us and set up your own scene, we couldn't be happier.

[04:36] CONNIE LONG: And, you know, it spills over into then, several years later, us having another child, and, you know, just the way things have worked out, you guys are close to us here physically, you know, I mean, we're always emotionally close, but physically, you know, it's. Yeah. So.

[04:59] CLAIRE COTU00E9: And there was another part to that question. Yeah. The second part is, how would you describe yourselves that can be, you know, in whatever direction you would want to take that individually or as a couple. I think you should run your career down because you have an interesting career.

[05:20] CONNIE LONG: Well, I am about twelve years old, 13 years old. I discovered music was a wonderful expression. And being a short person, it was like, I can't play basketball, even though I'm pretty good at it. Sports were, I liked it. But finding music and rhythm, particularly through percussion instruments, was a wonderful discovery for me, and I kept with it. And so I am a musician. I'm a music educator, taught, taught in the schools here in the northern New Mexico. And then we were married and we started a woodworking business. And we are toy makers. We make wooden toys and have been doing that since 1979. And I'm now also working as a park ranger for the Rio Grande del Norte national Monument through the Bureau of Land Management. And that's been a really great new career path for me. But we spent 40 years, you know, as independent business people and have been able to raise our kids, you, Claire and Joan, through our business. And it's been really an amazing path to be able to work together as a couple of, in a business, to put beans on the table and raise our family at the same time in a environment that's beautiful, stimulating and challenging, you know. So go from there.

[07:26] CLAIRE COTU00E9: How about you in terms of your, like, kind of braided into that description at the end, but how would you describe yourself? Well, early on out of school, I worked in teaching young kids preschool and kindergarten, and then actually taught in a one room schoolhouse type thing up in the little mountain town of Red River, New Mexico. But then when we became parents and there was a question of whether to homeschool or have the kids, you know, go to school, we decided to homeschool and so continued with the teaching through that. So that was a very big part of my life with you guys, and a nice, the way things wove together with the homeschooling and the home business. So, yeah, I guess leave it at that. I would add that we're in a library here, and one of your passions is, and it's part of our whole. Our whole. We have our own library. We do have our own library. We do like to come to libraries, but other people, and we like to come to our own library, and other people like to come to our library, too?

[09:04] CONNIE LONG: Yes.

[09:05] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah. I love children's books. I love all books, but particularly children's books.

[09:11] CONNIE LONG: Connie has a passion for children's literature, and it's so fun to see her light up with that.

[09:20] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah. Thank you. I feel like it's sometimes hard for you to identify all of your gifts and your passions that come so naturally through you because you're such a server and carer for others and you bring so much to us. But I don't say this in a mean way, but you always put other people's first and you put yourself second. And so it, and not, like I say, not in a mean way. That's a gift. And you, you are so powerful and important in and of yourself as well, individually, as well as a support to all of us. So, like, that's what I feel like in our family, is that you're a matriarch in the most caring sense. Thank you.

[10:25] CONNIE LONG: Definitely.

[10:26] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Well, that's been a gift for me, as I was trying to say earlier. That really was expanding for me to realize. Yeah. When you care for others, that.

[10:40] CONNIE LONG: You.

[10:40] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Know, is so expansive. And you've been an amazing inspiration for me as a mom, you know, to be able to look to your example and, you know, try to emulate that putting of others first, because that's what we absolutely have to do as parents, you know? And I feel like you do that, like, effortlessly, not without effort, but you do that naturally. Thank you. I think you guys kind of touched on this a little bit. But again, kind of briefly, how would you describe this place, this region where you ended up choosing to live together and then create our home and family? You know, you chose some really powerful adjectives, but if you were both to expand on that a little bit, what would you, how would you describe it? Well, I guess I would contrast it with where I grew up, because I grew up in southern California and suburbs of a fairly good sized city. And it was a, a really pretty place, you know, beautiful weather, and you could see the mountains then because the freeways hadn't been built yet. And, you know, and there were parks and beach and, you know, there were lots of aspects to it, but it was very well manicured and not wilderness, not wildness, you know, and highly populated, of course. So the contrast moving to northern New Mexico was wonderful. So much space, so much clean air, so many places to effortlessly take hikes and adventures. And so that was a huge attraction for me early on. And you as well, right?

[12:56] CONNIE LONG: Yeah. Yeah. And the beauty and the proportions for me were so different because, you know, even though I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, the just everything was so close, you know, had pretty mountains and pretty trees and all those kind of things. But, you know, when you look out at the mountains behind our house and you go, oh, that's about 5 miles up there, you know, so we, I just was really struck by the space, this size of things, you know, the scale. The scale. Yeah. And I think it's a good point, a good time to just mention as we became integrated into the area where we were living, you know, in terms of like the beauty of the space and figuring out how we were going to build our house on the land that we purchased. And I, things like that, that just being struck by the cultural aspect of what is here, that becoming friends with the land grant community from the hispanic settlers here, becoming some friends with the Native Americans through the Taos Pueblo was just mind expanding for me, you know, growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania. And it was wonderful to experience the fierce, I use this word, fierce independence of the peoples here, whether it was, you know, the man granted folks or the Native Americans to the pueblo, you know, I never experienced anything like that, you know, growing up and to realize that, you know, I mean, there are a lot of challenges when you, when you're living here, you know, like you got to keep warm, you know, and you got to figure out a way to, you know, put beans on the table, you know, so. And then there's all this beauty right there too. So it's interesting contrasts with that aspect of the culture as well as the environment.

[15:39] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah, I feel like a natural. Next question is, can you tell me how you guys met and come to live in northern New Mexico?

[15:53] CONNIE LONG: Okay, here we go. So I came out on the invitation of a friend, high school friend who ended up being on the road doing a hippie thing. And he settled here in New Mexico. And I got to see him like the Christmas before I came here. And what was his name?

[16:22] CLAIRE COTU00E9: What is his name?

[16:23] CONNIE LONG: His name is John Dillon and he's a guitar maker and has a radio show called the art of the song. And John said, why don't you come out, we'll put a band together. And we already have a little christian band that we're doing here playing in churches and so on, but we can. And so I came to New Mexico and packed up the van and 2000 miles later, here we are. And we just were in a little one room, two room adobe house jamming and playing some good tunes and had the opportunity. We were playing in the ski areas in Taos ski area, ski Valley and so on, at some of the clubs there. And, well, we ended up being lounge lizards in Albuquerque with little outfits and so on, and playing two months at the Holiday inns. Well, we worked from nine till one in the morning, nine at night to one in the morning. Everything else was free. And so one day, Francis, who was the sax player, guitar player in the bandaid, said, hey, Tim, could I use your van? My sister's coming in on the train and I need to pick her up. And, you know, I said, well, I'm not doing anything. You mind if I come along? Yeah, sure. So we ended up at the train station in Albuquerque, and when the super chief comes in from Los Angeles, everybody, this board gets off the train and they wash the windows down. And there's a group of Native Americans that are selling some of their wares. And so it's kind of crowded and hectic. Frances and I got separated from one another, and unlike me, very unlike me, I see this cute blonde woman coming towards me and I kind of went, hi.

[18:26] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Hi.

[18:27] CONNIE LONG: Waving. She was like, hi. You know, wave. And Francis is behind me going, Connie, Connie. Hi, Connie. You know, that's how we met. So we fell in love. And Holiday Inn we did. And somebody. There's a country song in there somewhere, I'm sure. And it was all uphill from there, right?

[18:58] CLAIRE COTU00E9: No.

[19:02] CONNIE LONG: But it was been wonderful.

[19:07] CLAIRE COTU00E9: That surprised us both that we. That we stayed in our relationship, that we met each other so quickly and stayed in a relationship. Because you didn't have a very long courtship, did you? No. No.

[19:25] CONNIE LONG: We kept reminding. We kept reminding each other, you know, that. Is this okay? Are we okay?

[19:31] CLAIRE COTU00E9: We'll get married here. And it was okay. And that was. Let's see, we were thinking of this. That was a while ago now.

[19:38] CONNIE LONG: Yes. 49 years ago, right? Yeah.

[19:42] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah. So, worked out fine. So then what happened from there, you were down in Albuquerque, but then. Yeah, moved back up to Taos.

[19:56] CONNIE LONG: Connie was working as a preschool teacher in a little hippie school. Hippie preschool, los ninos. And I was still playing, and we were touring, you know, Colorado ski areas and things like that. And I was kind of tired of working in clubs, you know, my working hours from nine to one, you know, but. And I decided to. Well, maybe it's time to start, you know, thinking about day job. Getting the day job.

[20:36] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah.

[20:37] CONNIE LONG: So I became a music teacher in the quest of schools and developed an amazing amount of french friends there. I kind of think of myself as, like, bringing the Beatles to Cuesta, you know, like. Cause I played guitar and we would sing songs and that kind of stuff and talk about music and so on.

[21:02] CLAIRE COTU00E9: But the who. I have had people tell me, you know, former students talk about the who and you bringing the who to the classroom. The kids loved him. He was such a breath of fresh air, young energy. Yeah, yeah, right. You weren't that much older than high school seniors at that time.

[21:26] CONNIE LONG: That's true. Yeah. And I was telling somebody the other day that I helped the band director out at the high school with his drummers, because I did marching band and so on. We played a parade, or the band was going to a homecoming parade in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and I actually dressed up in the marching band outfit and played the parade with them. So I. You're right. I wasn't much older than the high school kids.

[22:03] CLAIRE COTU00E9: I don't think I knew that. What are some of your early memories of settling into this new place? You mentioned that you bought land, and I remember hearing about, you know, leaky roofs and different unusual living situations. Oh, yeah. When we were still living in town. What might you want to share of those? Yeah, we lived in a little tiny apartment, and just for historical sense, we still remember that the rent there was $67.50 a month. And so that gives you an idea of how much things have changed in Taos. Yeah. We lived in the. What would it be? The south end of an old adobe. And that was a really neat experience. But it was cold. It was.

[23:07] CONNIE LONG: Poor Connie. Couldn't get warm. First winter, you know, didn't matter what boots we finally found boots to.

[23:14] CLAIRE COTU00E9: I was transitioning from southern California, and then we lived in a beautiful little farmhouse. Again, it was a family home that we got to rent. And that was about when we bought our land. So we kind of started moving north, so. And began building our own cabin.

[23:41] CONNIE LONG: Yeah, we were gonna. We were gonna build, you know, just a little place that, like, a little shed we could keep some tools in and, you know, well, maybe just stay there, sleep overnight there, if we wanted to, because we bought this really nice property, almost four acres. And we were just so high with that, you know, it was amazing, you know, to be property owners and. But we didn't know much about building, did we?

[24:17] CLAIRE COTU00E9: You should tell about the pamphlet.

[24:19] CONNIE LONG: That's a funny thing. This is pre Internet, of course, pre cell phones, all that kind of stuff. And there was a place in Pueblo, Colorado, that was a depository for the us government publications, and you could get a list of them, you know, mailed a request, and they would send you this catalog of all of these publications that the government had on file, and then you could purchase them. Some of them were free, and some of them were, like, $0.50. Some of them were. I think the one that we bought was for building a frame structure, wooden frame structure for a dollar 97 or 95.

[25:03] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah.

[25:03] CONNIE LONG: You know, and so we bought this, and it was, like, really very comprehensive, you know, and they had a couple of different designs, and we said, you know, what if we just make this a little bit bigger, we could actually live there, you know?

[25:20] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah.

[25:21] CONNIE LONG: Yeah. So we built this, what was it, 16 by 22? Shed, gable roof. And, you know, it just kept evolving into what turned out to be our.

[25:37] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Home, our present home. Yeah.

[25:38] CONNIE LONG: Yeah. And so we. We moved in in 1976. I think it was 76, 77.

[25:52] CLAIRE COTU00E9: A little bit late. Yeah.

[25:53] CONNIE LONG: Anyway.

[25:54] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah.

[25:55] CONNIE LONG: And we've been there ever since, and we're still, you know, finding a couple places to put some trim up and.

[26:00] CLAIRE COTU00E9: That kind of thing.

[26:03] CONNIE LONG: Windows needing to be replaced now and so on. But, you know, it's been a great home, don't you think?

[26:09] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yes, I very much agree. Yep. This is kind of an open ended question, but who or what experiences have been the biggest influence on this part of your life that we're talking about kind of the being here in this place. So, like. And then what. What did those people or experiences teach? Teach you? Well, I would say right off, my oldest brother John and his wife, Jocelyn, they had lived here early on in the late sixties, and I had come to visit them. John was working for the forest service as a range manager, and they were so helpful and generous with us to try and get us started as a young couple. And then we got to be with our niece and nephew as they were being born and growing up. And as Tim mentioned, our other brother Francis was also here, but he sort of did a different path. What do you think? We have a lot of neighbors. We have very generous neighbors. Gabrielle and Daniel Herbertson let us live in their house while we were building our house for next to nothing, rent. And.

[27:51] CONNIE LONG: Yeah, I think that, you know, you're experiencing the love and generosity of your brothers. And our sister in law was really, really influential in our, you know, being able to do what we did, you know, and it was through John and Jocelyn that, you know, we started the woodworking business, and they wanted to get their kids into a better school system, better school situation. And they were very much in tune with the Waldorf teaching system, so they moved to California to do that. And then so we, Connie and I decided that we should keep this business going, the North Star Woodworks Northstar toys business. And so we purchased the business, and that was a very influential part of, you know, our being here and, you know, to, you know, make toys, build cabinets. It was a balancing act there for a while. You know, we were building cabinets for and trim outs for, you know, contractors and making toys and going to craft shows and selling them with a catalog and, you know, little mail order business to begin with. And it came to kind of a bit of a head because we had to, you know, we couldn't do both of those things with the business.

[29:35] CLAIRE COTU00E9: It was too busy.

[29:37] CONNIE LONG: And because we were both teachers and educators, we thought, oh, you know, and we also, we try to design the toys to be simple but educational, you know, have some kind of educational quality to them. And so we decided that, you know, let's just do the toy. Let's make the leap and just make toys instead of doing cabinets, you know? And so we had to kind of do a little bit of everything, okay, of making toys, going to craft shows, selling wholesale to gift shops, having our little mail order catalog that we mail out once or twice a year. And so that was pretty important for us, wasn't it?

[30:31] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah, it was. Is there any other things like that that you would want to reflect on, you know, experiences that you had or people that you feel like, have kind of like, you know, directed your life or, you know, directed your way that you think about the world or. Well, we very soon after we both moved here, we were learning about meditation and, you know, applying spiritual principles to daily living. And that was a huge part of our growing up, understanding life and the way we conducted ourselves, the way we pursued things. And there was a whole, sorry. There was a whole group of dear friends that we met through a meditation group, and it was very supportive, and that has been a huge part of our.

[31:48] CONNIE LONG: That was another aspect. That was a really huge part of our, like you said, growing up, you know.

[31:54] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah, I think kind of piggybacking on that over the years. What are some of the things that you've had learned both as individuals and then through building your life together? This is kind of a question related to what we were talking about on the phone, you know, like, sort of almost like you're. You're guiding stars in your life now. You know, that you're. You're through lines that you, you have now as people who've lived a life. Yeah, that's a big question. It can sound trite in the way self help and all these little quotes are circling around these days, but, you know, really having love be your guide and forgiveness and, you know, compassion and that, that will open you to understanding. And many times, particularly like in a marriage or a family, wherever you're. What I think of as sort of a less than true self would want to go in one direction. What I've reminded myself is try the other way and take the high road, you know, and that just works as an ongoing guide for marriage, family, neighbors, getting to know new friends, whatever.

[34:09] CONNIE LONG: Yeah. Right on. Yeah. Very good.

[34:14] CLAIRE COTU00E9: You had mentioned kind of something about almost like, your life philosophy in terms of maybe less conceptually and more kind of like, concretely in your life, how you apply some of those principles of, like, how you have ended up prioritizing your home and, you know, sort of these longer term, slow, steady goals. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[34:52] CONNIE LONG: Yeah, I think that, you know, to me, relationships are the core here, you know, and that you are. That we're working to just keep that happening on a good, solid note, always checking in, kind of like, how you doing? Are you okay? Everything okay? You know, and that we're okay physically. We're okay emotionally? We're okay mentally, you know, and if not, let's figure that out. But also if it's good, if things are going good, you know, that you just have these goals, like, that you work with. And some of them are. Can happen now. Some of them are going to happen over a longer period of time. And that's what we've kind of put our focus into. It's like to say, you know, we've been given this gift of living in this beautiful place, in this beautiful property with this wonderful family. You know, let's make it. Let's make that our yoga. Let's make that our life, you know? And so we've just developed our property little, little by little, you know, and to try to make it, to try to be stewards, for one thing. And then also to be, have it be a beautiful spot to have fun and be contemplative as well. Well.

[36:31] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Well put. If you. Knowing what you know now, what might you tell your younger selves?

[36:45] CONNIE LONG: Go ahead.

[36:49] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah, hang in there. The work is worth it. The inner work, the outer work, you know, and I think I actually majored in religion in college, which is sort of a weird thing if you're planning to be a teacher. But I think. I think I was just wanting to understand different spiritual paths and, you know, I had a sense already of, you know, there are a lot of different teachings, but they do come down to this. Live your life purposefully and, you know, be of service, be open hearted, you know, so, you know, stay on that path. I guess I would say be of good cheer, you know?

[37:55] CONNIE LONG: Yeah, I think that's pretty good.

[37:58] CLAIRE COTU00E9: You do? Yeah. This was kind of like a. In a way, a last minute add on. But how do you feel that this place has changed you as individuals or as a couple? I mean, you've lived more here now. This has been kind of like two thirds of your life here.

[38:33] CONNIE LONG: I think it just opened me more personally to seeing other people, how they live, and appreciating other ways of being, other cultures. And I'm grateful for it. Just gratitude.

[39:05] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Is there anything you want to add to that? Yeah, I feel very grateful to get to live here. And, yeah, I love our home. I love our northern New Mexico scene. It has a quality beyond the beauty of the physical. There's a deeper quality. And we've noticed that when, you know, we're so related to Colorado in terms of the Rockies and the chain, that Rocky Mountain chain that finishes up throughout New Mexico, but there's a real different quality here, I find, and I feel very. We feel very fortunate get to live here.

[39:59] CONNIE LONG: Yeah.

[40:00] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Yeah. Some people say that's what the significance of Taos Mountain is. There's something very special there.

[40:08] CONNIE LONG: Yeah. And it radiates out, you know. Yeah. We're lucky.

[40:13] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Is there anything else that you, you would like to add in our last few seconds here? Minute. Thank you, Claire.

[40:23] CONNIE LONG: Thank you, Claire.

[40:24] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Thank you, StoryCorps.

[40:26] CONNIE LONG: Thank you, StoryCorps. Yeah.

[40:27] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Wow.

[40:28] CONNIE LONG: What a privilege and an honor.

[40:34] CLAIRE COTU00E9: Thank you, guys. Yeah.