*Regionalism*

Late into the evening on a cool August night, just as the sun began setting over the lake, a man walked through the vineyard with quick decisive steps, making his way from row to row. The grapes which were his screen against watchful eyes had been protecting him for several months as he had traveled and they served as his most useful safeguard to avoiding detection besides the endless expanse of trees. Ducking with each sound from the roadway the man laughed to himself at the irony of the situation; all his life he had hunted deer and other animals in the area but now he was the hunted.
It had been almost four months since his escape from prison and since then the area had exploded in activity in an attempt to find and arrest him again. State policemen were called in and news trucks never seemed to leave. So much excitement in such a quiet, rural area where interesting is a rarity and excitement has never happened before created a lot of discussion, especially as time wore on with no capture. The man, Ralph, was not unaware of the attention. However, he knew that if it had been a different region or at a different time of year, he never would have escaped detection for so long.
While mostly cool in late summer, nights in the winter would have been tortuous and impossible, with; lake effect white outs so bad you can’t see your hand in front of your face and wind that can make your breath feel frozen inside of you. The woods however, even before the mild summer weather, were his best alliance. A seemingly endless expanse of birch, elm and oak trees so dense in places that no one but locals could successfully find their way. And then there were the farms – grape vineyards mostly but also hay and corn where a man could just disappear into the fields. With so much land and so few people around there were more places to hide than people in the towns. The towns themselves were nothing too impressive; mostly little or no shops, abandoned buildings and one traffic light if they were lucky, the perfect picture of a deteriorating community.