I-45 WRECKER SERVICE owner David James and "Crash" look over a new book in which pictures of them are featured. A new book released by Texas A&M University Press demonstrates the fondness Texans have for the Texas flag and its colors, and includes two photos of a Fairfield man.

"Lovin' that Lone Star Flag" is a book of some 120 photos, with short notes, of Texas flags in all shapes and sizes, adorning everything that has a bare spot.

The book is written by and includes the photography of E. Joe Deering, a staff photographer retired from the Houston Chronicle.

Starting in 2002, Deering noticed and began photographing the many Texas flag images painted on buildings, vehicles, barn doors and other places. As he traveled Texas for the Chronicle, Deering continued to add to his Texas flag collection, eventually disp laying a number of them for a Chronicle photog raphic essay in October, 2002.

Deering's "flagotography" was also featured in an exhibit at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station the year he retired, 2005. It was the exhibit that prompted the process of putting the photos together in a book.

THE DISTINCTIVE TEXAS FLAG paint jobs on I-45 Wrecker Service vehicles attracted the attention of photographer E. Joe Deering who included this picture in a recently published book. In 2004, David James, owner of I-45 Wrecker Service in Fairfield, was on a call with his dog Crash, when Deering saw him, called the number on the truck, and asked to take his picture. I-45 Wrecker is easily recognized around Fairfield by the huge Texas flags that adorn the sides of his vehicles.

James says he met Deering at his Fairfield shop not long after that and spent the day having his picture taken.

One picture, on page 51 of the book, shows James parked in his truck, with his dog Crash jumping out the back window. Deering calls the photo "Jump Start".

The picture on page 101 is called "Long Tall Texan" and depicts two of James' larger trucks picking up a smaller truck.

"He took a lot more than those two," James says.

When the exhibit opened at College Station, he says his parents Tom and Susan James attended, but he had not seen the photos, which include everything with Texas flags from license plates to water tanks, hang gliders, airplanes, armadillos and end zones.

Michigan native Deering, who now lives in Kerrville, says, "Possibly no other state in the union makes as varied, imaginative and entertaining use of a state symbol as Texans do with the Lone Star flag."

James opened I-45 Wrecker around Thanksgiving of 1997 with two light duty wreckers. Now they have three heavy duty wreckers for tractor trailers, three light duties, three "rollbacks", flat bed wreckers, four service trucks, and he has opened a wrecker service in Corsicana.

James says the first heavy duty truck he bought had the Texas flag logo on it. "I liked it, so I've stuck with it," he says. "It shows Texas pride, and it gets a lot of attention."

Working with James and the now famous Crash at I- 45 Wrecker are Sharon Mertz, Cindy Thompson, Hopsing Mertz, Dale Jonassen, Justin Green, Victor Hernandez, Garrett Lovelady, Frankie Jones, Craig Allen, Rigoberto Hernandez, Andres Garcia and Guillermo Garcia.

His Corsicana crew is Brian Gilmore, Daniel Jackson and Jose Toribio.

A 1998 graduate of Fairfield high school, James is not married, and in his free time he flies radio control airplanes. He's enjoyed the hobby for 18 years, he says. He builds the planes himself and competes in contests across the state.

He is a member of First United Methodist Church, and is a Mason.

Although Crash was just a pup in 2004, he still spends all his time with James, although the I-45 owner says he doubts Crash would jump out of any truck windows anymore. "Crash goes everywhere I go," he adds.