Iowan Connie Wilson taught English for 16 years and is the author of three books. She also has written for two of her local newspapers and has had two radio shows. Today, she shares her experience with getting involved with politics again during the Dean for America campaign.

When I read Christopher Graff's AP interview excerpt with Howard Dean—about his campaign in Iowa, in which he told the touching story of the woman in a wheelchair in Iowa who gave him $50 in quarters at a breakfast meeting...quarters that had come from her federal supplemental income check...and told Governor Dean that she had been "saving the quarters for two years, when she could, for something that was really important--and that this was really important to her,"—I was as touched as Howard Dean was at the time, and I could readily identify.

I'm not in a wheelchair. The money I contributed to Governor Dean's campaign wasn't in quarters. But I am a retired schoolteacher to whom $2,000 is a Big Deal. But, as with the woman of whom Howard spoke in his interview, doing everything I could for Governor Dean's campaign was "really important" to me, regardless of the financial sacrifice and an even Bigger Big Deal. The resurgence of faith in a candidate marked a sea-change in my history of political involvement. I have Governor Howard Dean to thank for that, no matter what else happens from now on.

Although nominally a Democrat by birth and upbringing, like John McCain, I have been known to cross political lines to support "the good guys." I also had not actively supported any candidate financially since 1960, when I campaigned actively for John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I think I got an allowance of $2.50 a week, at the time, so I'm sure my financial contribution was minimal. I was 15 years old. Mainly, I wrote things (like I'm doing now) and plastered them all over my high school. To wit:

Nix on Nixon!
Rah for Jack!
This is the cheer
That I will back.

In November,
You will see:
It's "Nix" on Nixon!
Jack's for me!

I then pasted "JFK" stickers all over my locker door at Independence (Iowa) high school, which, as I recall, earned me an in-school suspension and Big Trouble at home. The administration was less than thrilled. But I was young and enthused about "my" candidate.