My dear wife, Carrie, and I are in the process of procuring a gift to give this Christmas.  We are acquiring this particular gift from an old friend of mine.  His name is Chad Phillips.

Quit wit?  Chad is your man.

Sardonic humor?  Chad is your man.

Kind soul?  Chad is your man.

Excellent musician?  Chad is your man.

Discerning voice?  Chad.

Excellent writer?  Don’t read me, read Chad.

Great person?  Chad is your man.

Chad Phillips and I graduated from the same high school in nineteen hundred and eighty six.

Though we were never in either’s “inner-sanctum” growing up, we have always had a mutual respect for one another.  There is a great deal of unspoken feeling between us.  Once in a while you come across a guy you know is good and that is all you need.  You know.  You don’t need to go around prodding for tangible proof.  You have something better than that.  You have faith.  Until he proves me wrong, I have had and will continue to have all the faith in the world in Chad Phillips.  That is a pretty cool thing to come across.  Believe me, this “it factor” doesn’t come easy.   Y’all know I don’t type words like the ones in this paragraph on a whim.

Since I started speaktherights.com last July, folks from more countries than I will visit and people from all over the United States have checked in to read what I have had to offer. If you have taken pause to enjoy a single syllable, you can thank Chad Phillips.  He has a great deal to do with what you read.

Nearly ten years ago Chad Phillips was the editor of a fledgling and now defunct weekly newspaper that appeared in Harrison County, Indiana not nearly long enough.

Chad allowed me to write a weekly human interest column.  I enjoyed it very much.  It was fun.  It gave me a chance to connect with a group of people I did not have a chance to connect with before he made the call and asked me to write the things I did.  Some of those columns have appeared on this site.

Two summers ago my dear Carrie told me I needed to start writing a “blog”, as she put it.  I still don’t like that word.  It sounds like something that would clog up a drain pipe.  I know…I know…it is just me and I need to get over it.   Anyway, Carrie told me I needed to write like I used to write for the paper.  She told me what I knew, that I did not have to have a specific word count, that I could just write whatever.  That sounded great.  But…I can tell you that I still look at my little “word counter” that you can’t see right now and I still shoot for the same 700 words I shot for when I was writing a proper column.  When I finish short of 700 words, I am not a happy speaktherights writer.  Right now I am at 503 and I know I need to wrap it up so I can move on to other endeavors of the day.

Thank you, Chad.  Thank you for taking my columns and rarely touching them up after I had submitted them for publication.  Thank you for being a good guy.

May God bless you and yours this Christmas and always, Chad.

Thank you old bean.  Without you, there may might not be a speaktherights.com

That is speaking the rights…

Danny Johnson