5 July 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3155: I applied for that

“OK, there is a pandemic going on, but opportunity does not stop – don't have the attitude of 'I applied for that and didn't get it, so, I'm giving up on everything.' No. Keep applying. The rejection isn't personal.”

66-year-old Thomas Stepforth Sr. smiled as his chosen head of “Hashtag: Side Hustle” kept on keeping Lofton County's young people motivated to keep on prospering through the pandemic.

“Not that Vanna's personality isn't so huge that most adults her parents' age don't even know they are talking to a 18-year-old,” he said to her grandmother, equally delighted Mrs. Velma Stepforth, “but it is beautiful to see her keeping her own peer group from getting the bad mindsets so many of us older folks have fallen into.”

“Well, Tom, I think it is really kinda of like this: because we were born before civil rights was anywhere in the South, to say nothing of Lofton County lagging by nine years, we knew that if we didn't find a way to get to it, nothing was going to be handed to us in this world but trouble,” Mrs. Stepforth said. “Much harder for these young people hearing how things are better now, only to find out that nothing is going to be handed to them either and they still have to put in heavy work – in a pandemic, no less, where nothing looks like it did.”

“And then, it's Lofton County, forever behind,” Mr. Stepforth said. “How are we just going to let two rainstorms – OK, albeit edges of hurricanes, but still – having us out here looking like we can't count, measure, or cement anything down.”

“Us?” Mrs. Stepforth said, and started laughing. “Your father would NEVER, and my father would NEVER.”

“The way discriminatory hiring practices have gotten these folks washed clear up out of this county!” Mr. Stepforth said, “because they could not bring themselves to pay us fairly, but then couldn't bring themselves to pay anyone else fairly either!”

“Good, fast, and cheap – pick any two, not three!” Mrs. Stepforth said, and at last, Mr. Stepforth started laughing.

“Practically a law of nature!” he said. “And the wash is on time, because we see our children and grandchildren's generations are ready to get into all the opportunity there is, and I say God be praised for it! It was about time!”