Connie Smith
Connie Smith at 18, worked in the Circus Kirk during the summer of 1977. Smith and the rest of the circus crew worked 16-hour days, six days a week.
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When her brother called to ask what she was doing for the summer, Connie (Michael) Smith answered, “Joining the circus?”
T.J. Michael, an acrobat and Big Top boss in the Circus Kirk, called his little sister in Wisconsin looking to replace an injured acrobat.
Smith was 18. It was the summer between her freshman and sophomore year of college.
“I called home and said, ‘I was running away to the circus,'” Smith said. “I flew to New Hampshire and joined the show.”
Smith assisted the juggler's and unicyclist's acts, and performed “magic” by escaping from a bag inside a locked box. She also did acrobatic stunts on the Roman ladders.
Smith and the rest of the circus crew worked 16-hour days, six days a week, rising each day before dawn to set up the circus, and tearing it down at the end of the night.
It was 1977, and Smith and her co-workers earned $50 a week.
“We didn't do it for the money,” she said. “I sold tickets for an extra $10, and drove the truck for an extra $10 for a whopping $70.”
“It was quite the summer,” said Smith, who was often asked to sew up tears in the canvas tent created by a young restless elephant.
The circus was owned by a college professor who wanted to teach part of the year, and be on the road part of the year, Smith said.
“His workers were mostly college students. They'd go back to school when he went back to school,” she said.
On her one day off, Smith, a dedicated musician, would find a person in town with a piano who would let her practice.
Communicating through music
When Smith was 5, her mother died of a brain aneurysm. Her brother and sister were 10 and 12.
“Two years later we got a stepmother and two stepbrothers. The house was in turmoil after that,” Smith said.
“But we had someone to take care of us.”
Smith remembered her stepmother saying the only way she could communicate with Connie was through music.
“She is a musician herself,” Smith said. “We'd do duets together. She'd sing and I'd play the piano. It was the way we communicated.”
Smith found public high school wasn't serving her music interest and so in her senior year she moved to the Interlochen Arts Academy in nearby Michigan where she had attended summer music camps.
“I loved it. It was my place,” Smith said.
Smith earned a college degree in music education with an emphasis in piano in Appleton, Wis. It was there the classically trained Smith first heard Celtic music.
“It put me on another path of music,” she said.
Smith moved to Albuquerque where she attended her first contra dance and soon found herself playing in an old-time and Celtic music band called The Chili Tones.
She also taught private piano lessons, and waited tables to save money for a solo backpacking trip through Europe.
Europe
Smith left for London in early June, 1981, traveling through Europe for the next five months.
“I met people along the way to travel with if I wanted companionship,” Smith said.
“I loved Ireland and Scotland. When I got to Ireland I felt like I was home.”
She visited a college friend living north of Paris; spent a few days on a river with an Olympic rowing coach; picked grapes for 10 days with a family in the south of France; and then took a train to Spain.
Smith returned to the states on Halloween.
Seven years later at a Halloween party in Albuquerque, she met her husband-to-be Greg Smith.
Greg and Connie married in 1991, moved to Grand Junction the following year where they settled and had two sons.
Smith missed the Celtic music, and the contra dancing in New Mexico, and in 1995, formed a Celtic band called Blarney Pilgrim. The band changed it's name to Fifth Reel to reflect other types of music such as old-time, ragtime and jazz.
Smith and her band mates organized their first contra dance in the Grand Valley in 1999. Contra dances have been held in the Grand Valley ever since, during the fall, winter and spring seasons.
Creative mothering
Smith, 51, is also a visual artist — she paints clothing, creates jewelry and makes clocks out of mixed media. She's constructed colorful tile mosaic framed mirrors and corkboards, as well as a mosaic sandstone walkway in front of her house.
For the past sixteen years she's sold her work at the Art Center's annual holiday arts and crafts fair. She also holds a private show each year.
Her work is also in stores in western Colorado - Durango, Ridgway, Frisco, Moab, Cedaredge - the Blue Pig Gallery in Palisade, as well as a shop in St. Louis and also Seattle.
Smith's boys have always been welcome in their mom's workshop at home where they have also enjoyed making things.
A few years ago Ryan, an accomplished artist himself, now 14, painted a picture for his aunt for her 50th birthday.
“She wanted a Ryan original,” Smith said.
Smith liked it so much she turned the painting into Mother's Day cards and Ryan sold them, giving a third of the profit to a charity of his choice.
His artwork has benefited a local animal spay and neuter program; bought an entire Christmas meal for a family; and purchased a dog house for animal control.
Son Ben is 16, and a computer whiz who volunteers at the Mesa County Public Library's computer lab teaching free computer classes.
To nurture Ben's interest Smith asked Rick Castellini, owner of Grand Valley PC Partners and host of the Castellini on Computers radio show, if Ben could ride around with him while he made house calls fixing people's computers and answering their questions. Castellini agreed.
“I posed (the question) gently,” Smith said. “I was just a mother with an idea.”
Reach Sharon Sullivan at ssullivan@gjfreepress.com