Q: I was watching college football last Saturday and began to think about Keith Jackson, when he used to announce games. I remember someone telling me he was from Georgia. Do I remember that correctly?
A: Jackson’s voice has been described as a “spoon of Georgia sugar,” and it’s one that I’ve missed on college football broadcasts since he retired for good nearly eight years ago. Even though he’s lived in California a large part of his life, Jackson, who turned 86 on Oct. 18, wasn’t shy about sprinkling in the Southern vernacular he learned while growing up in Georgia’s Carroll County in the 1930s. Those phrases included his famous line of “Whoa, Nellie!” which he has attributed to his great grandfather.
“He was a farmer and he was a whistler,” Jackson told the Los Angeles Times last year. “He loved two phrases: ‘Dad gummit’ and the other was ‘Whooooooa, Nellie.’ ”
Jackson was born in Roopville and attended schools in Carroll County before heading off to the Marines in the 1940s. He later graduated from Washington State and joined ABC in 1962, where he became the first play-by-play man for “Monday Night Football,” spent years with “Wide World of Sports,” did the Olympics and even called MLB and NBA games.
But appropriately, perhaps because of his Georgia roots, we will always associate Jackson with college football.
Q: The Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers has been in operation for 70 years. How many monks reside there?
—Scott MacLean, Forest Park
A: There are about 40 monks who live at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, according to its website (www.trappist.net). The monastery was founded by 21 monks in 1944 and now includes Abbey Church, a beautiful Gothic-style building that I encourage folks to visit, a garden center that sells a variety of plants, including bonsai trees, a stained glass studio, a gift shop that also has an online store (www.holyspiritmonasterygifts.com), a museum and a visitor's center.
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