16 April 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3075: not more news
“OK – no more news reports for right now about who's doing and saying what about the hurricane and how this and that should be done. My mother's family is not the one that loves Ulysses S. Grant, but we recognize how he won his war: we're going to stop worrying about what everyone else is saying and doing, and focus on what we're going to do. Not more news from others: right, consistent action from us.”
Mayor Donald Lee Garner Sr. heard his son's voice as he walked from one side of Big Loft's city hall to another, and smiled as the mayor who was referred to as “the designated survivor” continued to surprise the hall. His journey from alcohol dependency to strong city leader was actually not unlike General Grant's … but it was not politic to say that in southern Virginia.
It was politic, of course, to say that the Lee heritage of strong leadership came out when necessary ... but even that was reductionist, because the Lees-of-the-mountain followed their most famous ancestral uncle in understanding that if you can command yourself to operate with integrity, you will find it easy enough to lead others who are looking to do good things in the world. In that sense, the last name did not matter; to be human was enough to unlock the power of this wisdom.
Still, the names Lee and Grant were still remembered a century and half later because such men shined in a crisis, and while nobody would have expected “the designated survivor” to rouse himself up and also shake his scheming wife and her family loose so thoroughly, he had done it, to the point that he had accepted being drafted, more or less, to actually run for mayor and stay on.
“I'm not about to let anyone else get in here and mess up all this hard work I have been doing – I have paid in my heart's blood to get this city right, and I agree with the people that were going to write me in that they are right – I need another term to finish the job!”
Mayor Garner was running away with the election he hadn't even wanted to be in, but to walk through City Hall after he got his whole staff refocused and about their business was to understand why.
Mr. Donald Lee Garner Sr. smiled, and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Lord, I know my mom and dad are too busy adoring You to be worried about anything down here,” he said, “so I'll just thank You for telling Donald and Hattie Lee Garner right: grandbaby Donald Lee has grown all the way up.”