Never Use Your Dim Lights: Not Even in the Fog

By Margaret Hewitt George

A semi-autobiographical of my life in politics, beginning in 1967 and ending in 1982. I was the first woman to serve on the local school board and one of only a handful of women to be elected to the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974719110
• ISBN13: 9780974719115
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Writers Room Books
• Length: 199 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.0" x 0.2" x 0.3"

Customer Reviews

A very frank, simply told tale of PA politics

If you want a candid, no-frills look at what it was like to be a woman in Pennsylvania politics from the sixties into the eighties (she was one of the first), this is a good place to start. Peg George's thinly-veiled autobiographical journal of days pulls no punches. From her local school board days to the State House of Representatives, her "Helen Humphreys" regularly crosses party lines in how she votes on various issues and doesn't care what anyone thinks. She follows her conscience, mostly, and hates herself the few times when she knuckles under to the entrenched old-boy system in Harrisburg. A friend and mentor of mine once told me that for a book - particularly a memoir - to succeed, the protagonist has to be "likeable." Helen Humphreys is that. I'd like to know her. - Tim Bazzett, author of Reed City Boy

"Never Use Your Dim Lights" Shines on Political LIfe

This is a factual autobiographic record of a former Pennsylvania state legislator and School Board member. While the names in the book have been changed, the events are real, according to the author. The book, written in diary form, follows Peg George from her first local political meetings in 1967. She discovered she enjoyed running for office, even as a sacrificial Democratic candidate in an area vastly outnumbered by Republicans. She won election to the School Board by campaigning door to door. The machinations of School Board politics, from budgeting squabbles to visiting schools and attending obligatory football games are described along with her reactions. The positive reactions she received caused her to run for the State Senate, thinking she was being encouraged to seek office from friends and local political leaders. To her surprise, political leaders backed a candidate with more money and some friends crossed her. She discovered that politics can mean betrayal from people whose jobs are threatened and that support can be influenced by those who control patronage. Peg George recovered in 1976 to suggestions she run for the State House. Winning in the aftermath of Watergate, she found her political courage tested soon after taking office when she supported an unsuccessful motion requesting the House Speaker to resign. She was relieved when the local press praised her political independence. Her book describes other legislative lessons: committee meetings where votes occur on bills few know about without discussion, offers from leadership to change her vote in return for funding within her district, how legislative leaders vote for her without her knowledge in her absence, how some legislators will steal other's ideas and introduce them as their own legislation, and of paper clip fights on the House floor. She is also one of the few politicians to admit that campaign contributors can affect how one feels about contributors. The diary form of this book allows readers to gain insights to how the author reacts to the events she describes. For instance, we learn during her service in the legislature that "this place does something to you and you begin to like what it does...the feeling that I am part of important decisions". At the end of her political career, we discover that she writes how "I like myself better now. I seem to be a nicer person." Yet, as the book admits, she "wouldn't have missed it for the world."