This is truly 'be careful what you wish for' situation because there would be plenty of days where I would wish I had a lot of peopl

Back in December, I went back to my high school hometown of Bellevue, Nebraska for the first time in 23 years. I didn't write about it until now because I was uh.....on hiatus with my blog. Anyway, I went and I went with my travel buddy, my eight year old son Trey. I always mention how I played basketball at Bellevue West (T-Birds!) and I even watch the T-Birds bball team online whenever they stream the game. For the past three years, the TBirds have featured Chucky Hepburn,

Back in the Spring of 1986 while me and my family were living in Germany, my mom saw that I needed some more shoes. She told my dad to take me to the base BX (Base Exchange) to get me some more. I would by lying if I said I remember a whole lot about what happened on that trip (I was 7 going on 8) but I do remember this particular trip. The young-ish guy who worked at the BX said 'I got the perfect shoe for you!.....we got these in yesterday (note: we were in Germany, so I th

When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, stand up comedy was a huge entertainment enterprise. We had big time stand up comedians on top of the entertainment world like Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, and Martin Lawrence (who hosted the iconic stand up comedy show on HBO called 'Def Comedy Jam'). There was also a nightly stand up comedy show on BET called 'Comic View' that a lot of comedians got their start on. I truly believe a lot of my personality comes from watching these sho

Recently, the Cannady's split into two groups: the Cannady girls went down to Panama City, FL and the Cannady guys went up to NYC. It was the first trip that I got to do with Trey alone and I loved it! New York City is my absolute favorite city in the world and I think that's rubbing off on Mr. Trey. Since he's now six going on seven, we were able to walk (and walk fast) everywhere. The only crazy thing was how hot and muggy the city was. We had to stop a few times at a few N

If you know me (or have read enough of this blog), you know that my absolute favorite rapper of all time is Prodigy from the super rap duo Mobb Deep. Prodigy tragically passed away last year way before his time and it hit me really hard then and I still listen or discuss him probably every day. Recently, a friend sent me a link on FB and asked me have I heard of this podcast called ‘The Realness’ presented by WNYC because they are discussing Prodigy’s life in detail. And wow,

Most of the dads that I knew and observed while I was growing up never struck me as 'cool'. The dads I knew were always a little goofy (think bad dad jokes), wore clothes that screamed 'I'm a dad from the suburbs', and usually knew next to nothing about what was 'hot in the streets' music/movie/pop culture wise. One of the things I told myself before having kids was 'Man, I don't care....I'm going to be a cool dad'. Well, fast forward to me now having two kids and......yep, I

Strictly by the name of this blog, A Father's Glow, its pretty obvious that most of my writings are about being a father, fatherhood, etc. Well, my story about being a father wouldn't be a story without my angel....Ayren Jahmeena (she's going to kill me!) Jackson Cannady. I met her when she was a super shy but easy to smile teenager (calm down, she was 19!) I immediately got those 'vibes' that everyone talks about when meeting 'the one'. She did little things like make sure I

Photo by: Jonella Culmer When Ayren and i found out that she was pregnant with our first kid, Trey, we waited literally until he was born to know if he was going to be a little boy or girl. If he was a boy, everything was set. His name would be John Robert Cannady III and we would call him Trey. Now if it were a girl, we had a little more work to do. We had a few names picked out but ultimately, settled on something. Once Ayren was finished checking the doctor's phone message

A few weeks ago driving Trey to school, we listen to a news report on the radio about Stephen Clark. The conversation went like this: Radio Announcer: Police are continuing to investigate the police shooting of unarmed man Stephen Clark over 20 times.... Trey: Daddy? Me: Yes Bub? Trey: What does unarmed mean? Me: Um....it means somebody doesn't have any weapons like a gun or a knife on them Trey: So why did the police shoot him with their guns 20 times? Me: .......... For the