Jeff Darren Muse

Soggy Jeans

Featured in Dear Park Ranger: Essays on Manhood, Restlessness, and the Geography of Hope

Flowing from Marrowbone State Forest and Wildlife Management Area, Pitman Creek meanders through the Kentucky hollow where my father was born in 1943. It’s also where I, during childhood visits in the 1970s, first fell in love with wild things. I used to catch crawdads in a coffee can pierced with nail holes. From “Waiting for Rain”:

“I imagined my soggy jeans, the dripping coffee can, the cool air. I imagined tiptoeing through the stream, searching for prey. Crayfish dart backward, leaving contrails of smoky dust. You must lift the stones delicately to keep the water clear. Steady now, I used to tell myself. Lift slowly, lower the can. Watch out for those claws. Steady, steady.”

More than forty years later, I took this photo on the way to Indiana, my birthplace. It was a cloudy afternoon in late October, warm, humid, and the autumn-thin stream trickled almost imperceptibly. Dogs barked in the distance — dogs roused from front porch naps — and only one or two cars passed by, ascending what had been a gravel road during my youth.

As for the crawdads, still there! And quick. Barehanded, I came up empty.

Learn more about Dear Park Ranger, now available for preorder at Homebound Publications! Release date: May 5, 2023.