Book Excerpt in UT's Life and Letters

With the Bark Off is available where books are sold.

An excerpt from With the Bark Off has been published in The University of Texas College of Liberal Arts magazine, Life and Letters. (It was the College of Arts and Sciences back in the good ole days!)

Here is an excerpt of the article:

The following is an excerpt of With the Bark Off: A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media by Neal Spelce and Thomas Zigal. Both authors are graduates of the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin, which was still the College of Arts and Sciences when Spelce received his bachelor’s degrees in 1958. Spelce enrolled in the Plan II Honors Program in 1952 as a 16-year-old freshman. The program grounded him for his additional degrees – also received in 1958 – in Journalism and Radio and Television. The book was published in September 2021 by The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin.

A Page From Neal's 1958 University of Texas Yearbook & Today

Both sides Journalism

When Barry Goldwater was running against LBJ in 1964, the Republican presidential nominee booked a campaign stop in Austin, in the heart of LBJ country. Goldwater was a pilot, and he flew his own plane, a fairly large DC-3. We reporters headed out to the old Mueller airport in East Austin, and when Goldwater rolled to a stop on the landing strip, we were out there with our cameras. His supporters were there, too. He pushed open the pilot window and stuck his head out and waved to the crowd. “I’m glad to be here,” he said. “When I took off from Phoenix, they asked me if I’d ever been to Austin and if I knew where it was. I said, ‘No, I’ve never been to Austin, but I’m gonna fly east and when I get to a fairly good-sized city with only one TV tower, I’m going to land.’”

Read the entire article here: https://bit.ly/NS_LifeLetters

Many thanks to Tom Zigal, whose contribution to my memoir as well as this article was invaluable!

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Bill Moyers. Take Time to Float.

I first met Bill Moyers in 1953, though he probably doesn’t remember it. I was a 17-year-old snare drummer and Bill was the emcee of a summer band concert-in-the-park in the deep East Texas town of Marshall. We were both on summer break as students from the University of Texas in Austin. Soon thereafter, our lives started to intertwine. We’ve been lifelong, long-distance friends since that time. We talk. We laugh.

Photo: Bill Moyers & Neal Spelce

My admiration and respect for Bill’s brilliance began early and has grown exponentially since then. Turns out, I was asked to fill Bill’s shoes (I fell way short, I might add) as a part-time reporter at KTBC-TV in Austin. We were both still UT students. And when Bill left the job, my UT journalism professor recommended me. I became aware right away that Bill had set an amazingly high bar of accomplishment.

And that high bar has been Bill’s standard to this day.

By the way, the public first became aware of Bill when, just minutes before Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Bill was whisked to Dallas to join LBJ on Air Force One before the plane took off for Washington, bearing the dead president’s body. Bill became LBJ’s White House press secretary.

Bill’s national media career is legendary. No need to recite his many successes here. Just Google him. It is truly impressive. His contributions during recent decades have been his acclaimed work on PBS.

What I want to point out now is some personal advice he gave to me two decades ago that still rings true today. Not many are aware that Bill was a seminary student back in the day. He was an ordained minister.

But they may be aware Bill’s body of professional work has included some important productions about philosophy, faith, and theology. In fact, one of his most memorable shows was where he spent the entire program analyzing the legendary hymn, Amazing Grace.

As I write in my just-released memoir With The Bark Off, A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media: “He did something very special for me when I had five bypasses in open heart surgery. Bill had heart surgery himself and he sent me the sweetest personal note.”

This was more than 20 years ago. He was telling me to settle down, take it easy, relax.

And he gave me words to live by in his own, eloquent way: “Don’t forget to take time to float every day.”

https://billmoyers.com/

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LBJ Birthday Wreath Ceremony 2021

Reflections in a Cemetery – of a Different Sort

Most visitors to a cemetery reflect about those who are buried there. Personal, private thoughts. But my recent visit to the cemetery on the LBJ Ranch where President and Mrs. Lyndon Johnson are buried brought back memories about what happened at the burial events themselves. Memories that have been lying dormant, for the most part, dating as far back as 1973.

Stonewall, Texas - Burial place of President and Mrs. Johnson

Weather was an overriding factor when LBJ was buried and weather, of a different kind, 34 years later when Mrs. Johnson was laid to rest beside her husband, also was an important part of the proceedings. And, interestingly, after decades of reflection, the differing weather conditions were entirely appropriate for the lives of the former First Couple.

LBJ Library photo by Frank Wolfe

LBJ began his presidency at the moment of one of the most tragic times in American history – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. His entire presidency seemed to surge forward with one controversy after another, with the US involvement in the war in Vietnam ever-present. Even after his presidency, his last public words were uttered in the LBJ Library in Austin during a sometimes-intense symposium spotlighting civil rights problems.

How fitting was the weather at the time of his burial in January 1973? It was bitterly cold, blustery, and wet in his beloved Hill Country at the LBJ Ranch. I shivered through three days of planning and supervising the burial. But the service came off without a hitch, in spite of the “appropriate” weather.

Mrs. Johnson outlived her husband by 34 years, continuing the work she began in the White House, focusing in large and small ways, on improving the environment. One of her most visible accomplishments can be seen as wildflowers emerge each spring along roadways and in the work at the University of Texas Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

The weather at the time of her burial in July 2007? A soft rain was prevalent, nourishing the Texas soil. A soft rain for a soft-spoken genteel lady who loved the outdoors her entire life. As a family spokesperson, I was asked by a reporter if the rain would spoil the services and I replied “No, Mrs. Johnson would love the rain.”

Memory is a wonderful thing. And it is very interesting how our brains recall certain details of significant developments in our lives.

Weather is such an important part of our daily lives, I guess it is not surprising that it colors our memories. But isn’t it fascinating how weather can sometimes be so appropriate?

It was an honor to deliver the keynote speech at the wreath laying ceremony honoring President Johnson's birthday.

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