Dear Park Ranger: Essays on Manhood, Restlessness, and the Geography of Hope
"Throughout my life," writes Jeff Darren Muse, "manhood has been a kind of topographic map. Yet it's peer pressure or social norms telling me which route to follow: Smile, Jeff, have a beer. Make babies. Make lots of money. Buy yourself a leaf blower. Hang out at parties. Lighten up."
So begins this unflinching look at a fifty-one-year-old environmental educator torn by restlessness and regret. Part Generation X travelogue, part love letter, part reflection on White male identity, Dear Park Ranger searches for purpose, companionship, a lost father, and home. Muse must break trail to find his way. From the farms and football fields of central Indiana, to snowy West Coast wildlands, from desert canyons, to meandering rivers, to a city built by slavery, he interrogates his younger years shaped by insecurity and wanderlust, as well as later choices such as marrying "Ranger Paula" and pursuing a tree hugger's career. The book opens in South Carolina, where Muse works as a historical interpreter at a former cotton plantation, a situation demanding not only new skills, but also discomforting awareness. Race, gender, age-all must be examined.
Dear Park Ranger is for anyone who loves fiercely and falls hard, who tries and tries again to get the important things right: handholding on long walks, a swift paddle stroke, a lighter backpack, and never giving up hope that better days lie ahead. At turns humorous and self-deprecating, redemptive and resolute, this is one man's stirring gut check through inner and outer terrain.
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In his award-winning memoir, Dear Park Ranger, Jeff Darren Muse writes: “You will not care for what you do not know. Start now. Start knowing it.” From crawdad creeks and public wildlands to college classrooms and prison gardens, he has worked throughout the United States as an environmental educator, historical interpreter, and park ranger.
Born and raised in Indiana, Muse graduated from Mt. Vernon High School in 1987 and DePauw University in 1991. With master’s degrees in science and creative writing, he has been employed by numerous agencies, public universities, and nonprofit organizations, from McLeod Plantation Historic Site and Zion National Park, to The Evergreen State College and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, to Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and North Cascades Institute. Be it north, south, east, or west, he embodies the Crossroads of America.
As a writer, Muse is inspired by Brian Doyle’s dictum: “The essay is a jackdaw, a magpie, a raven. It picks up everything and uses it.” Exploring nature, culture, family life, and his own highs and lows, Muse’s essays have appeared in Ascent, The Common, High Country News, and River Teeth, among others. His book, Dear Park Ranger, interrogates his lifelong restlessness—that of a fatherless, childless Hoosier who wouldn’t and couldn’t stay put. In 2024, Indiana Authors Awards celebrated his memoir on the Debut Shortlist. Likewise, Nautilus Book Awards honored it with a silver medal, and Foreword Reviews deemed it a finalist for a 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Award.
With his wife, “Ranger Paula,” Muse has returned home to central Indiana where he now battles cancer—his own. In the summer of 2023, as they both rangered in New Mexico, he experienced a cluster of confusing symptoms. An MRI revealed a brain tumor. Healthcare laid out a map. “Don’t fret,” he says. “I’m still here! Still hiking!” Along with writing about this new wilderness, Muse continues to connect people to places and people to each other—all ages, all walks of life.
Learn more at www.jeffdarrenmuse.com.
