FIRST WRITING PRIZE WINNER –
SUMMER 2021
is MICHAEL HAMILTON
of BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA
THE WOODLAND PRAIRIE
By Michael Hamilton
Growing up in New York City, USA, I didn’t have many outdoor wildlife adventures. My concrete and steel environment was no competition for the beautiful woodlands of the Adirondack Mountains. My best friend, Montgomery ‘Monty’ Pearson, and I found our prairie woodland to explore on property owned by the Long Island Railroad Company. Monty was short, husky, and a loveable kid. On the other hand, I, Michael ‘Mikey’ Hamilton was tall, skinny, and in my opinion, “I ain’t nothin’ nice.” Monty and I were night and day. Nevertheless, we stuck together like conjoined twins. Vividly, I remember a day in the summer of the year twenty thirteen, when we had one of the greatest adventures of our ten-year-old lives. Monty and I became outdoorsmen in the big city.
Before our journey to the marshy grassland, we decided to prepare like Boy Scouts. Monty conjured up some artificial crab-legs, bacon, and sausage to eat in this place we called, “The Woodland Prairie.” We brought a fork, a spoon, a knife, aluminum foil, and butter to cook our meals. Also, matches and Morton’s iodized salt not only to prepare our food but also to remove any leaches that might have been out to get us. At first, I was apprehensive about using matches because of my fear of starting a forest fire. Smokey the Bear and my mother had me scared straight from using matches without adult supervision. “Only you can prevent forest fires.” Equally important, I was also terrified by the thought of having blood-sucking parasites attached to my body in any way, shape, or form.
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However, Montgomery was determined to go on an adventure, so he reassured me that we would not be in any danger. He must have had a pretty good persuasive argument, for I was considerably tough to convince. “Let’s do it!” I said.
Upon entering the muddied pathway into the vast prairie woodland, my fear of the unknown subsided. “Yes, we arrived!” There were no humans to see in open plain sight. Focusing on the tall weeds, grass, wild plants, and flowers surrounding us, we talked about building a raft from wooden beams discarded by railroad workers. This raft was to be used for traveling about the murky-green, algae-polluted pond near our campsite.
Immediately, we searched for sticks, twigs, and kindling to start our campfire. Walking about this vast wilderness scenery, I felt as if I was somewhere in Disney World. It was truly wonderful! Dragonflies, birds, frogs, and an occasional rabbit were easy to spot. During our search for firewood, we stalked gardener snakes out from under old truck tires, wooden boards, large cable spools, and boulders. Taming the wild snakes was as much fun as catching them. We learned to carefully step on their heads until they submitted to our control. Monty and I caught over a dozen snakes to keep as temporary pets. However, the most prized snake of them all was a lime green snake that I’d found in Deadman’s Bushes. After catching snakes and gathering firewood, we carefully started our campfire for the cookout. Although snake meat seemed tempting, I really enjoyed eating the imitation crab legs with real bacon and sausage. We even brought butter for a tasty crab meat sauce. This was our feast in the wild. When we were done cooking our meals, Monty and I extinguished our small fire with pond water.
After having delicious “chow,” building and sailing on our crude, wood-beamed raft seemed like the right thing to do. This, to me, was the most memorable moment of our mission. To our surprise, we discovered that someone had left a three-man raft alongside the bank of the pond.
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Monty was the ship’s captain, and I, Mikey, his first mate. We pulled this ten-foot yacht into the troubled water, testing its sea-worthiness. Our ship was in tip-top shape. Monty grabbed two large branches to steer our newly found vessel. Then, I set our imaginary sails to reach the sun above the horizon. I had a bold sense of serenity like a true sailor at sea. We drifted upstream on the murky green lagoon. Pigeons flew like seagulls above our sails serenely singing sweet swan songs. As I took pictures of earth from the fifth dimension of my mind, Monty seemed to be a few steps beyond deep thought. Sitting in the water, was a small island with a tree that stood boldly near the center of the lagoon. Monty and I docked our floating vessel at the imaginary bay and walked around this enormous pile of dirt. It was the tree that brought these images to life in rare form. I don’t recall having much of a conversation with Monty, as much as we both knew the call of the wild. Moreover, we did mention that our friends Randy, Carl, Mark, and Brett were missing out on all the fun. This is the highlight of my experience.
On our pathway back to civilization, Monty and I felt that we were better prepared to face the problems of growing up in our cold, concrete, and steel place called home. Coming about toward land and existing our wooden raft, we inspected each other for leaches. We were all clear. Along the way, I released all of the snakes, except my lime-green treasure. It felt great knowing that we did exactly what we had set out to accomplish. We were happy to leave intact from a place called, “The Woodland Prairie.”
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About the author:
Michael Hamilton is an apprentice carpenter from Brooklyn, New York. He enjoys kayaking, snowboarding, and camping outdoors on weekends with his Siberian Husky, Phoenix.
