The oxygen man

"The day her momma phoned Park Luttrell, the water was all the way up to the front steps. Rain was still falling, had been failing off and on for forty-eight hours. It was supposed to stop the next day, but toward the end of the week another front would be coming through. These were things you knew in 1973, when everybody's mind was on the weather.". "Daze was sitting on the couch in the living room, flipping through an old copy of Redbook, when her momma walked out of her bedroom and into the hall and picked up the phone. Ned was outside, in a raincoat and a pair of hipboots, slogging around in the water with a fishing pole in his hand. Last week, when the road was covered for a couple of days, he'd worn the raincoat and the hipboots and waded out to the main road and caught the bus to school. Spring practice had started, and even though it was raining, the team was working out in the gym. Daze told him he was crazy for wading out, but he said he'd won a position and he didn't aim to let a little water make him lose it."--BOOK JACKET.