Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

7.10.16    Trailer Park Princess is back with rousing new adventures

When dog groomer Salem Grimes pulls into Sonic for a double-meat, double-cheese burger with extra mayo and jumbo fries, the last thing she’s expecting to find is another dead body.

But as she waits for her food to be delivered, she watches the garbage truck in the alley pick up a metal dumpster and — hold on! — was that a human body that just fell into the truck?

Sure enough, it was, and soon Salem Grimes and her eighty-something-year-old sidekick Viv — and an annoying guy named Dale — are on the case, whether the police like it or not (they don’t).

It’s another rousing tale by Lubbock author Kim Hunt Harris featuring Grimes, the unlikeliest of heroes. This one is The Trailer Park Princess with Unsightly Bulges, the second in a series. The first was The Trailer Park Princess and the Middle Finger of Fate, and a third is coming soon, The Trailer Park Princess Is Caught in the Crotchfire. Plus there are two “Trailer Park Princess” short stories available as e-books.

Harris mixes in a lot of humor and action, but also some serious contemplations regarding faith, family, friendship and social issues, into her stories, which are in paperback and e-book formats. Read more on her website, kimhuntharris.com.

Dyess AFB history: A new book on The History of Dyess Air Force Base: 1941 to the Present by retired Lt. Col. George A. Larson is a lavish and comprehensive full-color coffee-table sized volume (Schiffer Publishing, $59.99 hardcover).

The history actually precedes that of the actual Dyess base, as it incorporates the World War II years of Camp Barkeley and Tye Army Air field, later named the Abilene Army Air Field. Dyess opened as Abilene Air Force Base in 1956 and later that year officially took the Dyess name in memory of World War II hero Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess of Albany.

“Dyess is a historic military base,” the author writes, “and is an indispensable part of the nation’s defense against external threats to security.”

The book details with color photos and historical and technical text the various wings, groups and squadrons that have called Dyess home over the years, the changing missions of the base, and the airplanes based there.

Telling her story: Mary Stewart Heather of Lubbock, a retired travel agent, has done something more people ought to do. She has published her memoirs, Texas Girl: The Story of a Life, a well-written autobiographical account of the first ninety years of her life — from 1925 through 2015.

Heather writes that her book “is a personal account of the life of one woman during the devastating Depression years and those of World War II, and continues to the present day.  It was written, primarily, as a family legacy but I feel that it would be of interest to many people who have experienced life on the South Plains during this era.”

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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is More Civility, Please. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.