Those who have lived in Fort Worth long enough remember the early days of Barber’s Book Store as a downtown institution – a treasure house of volumes that put all the department store book sections to shame. Long before there was Border’s or B. Dalton’s or Barnes & Noble, there was Barber’s Book Store.
I started working at Barber’s in the summer of 1967 before my senior year at Paschal High School. It was an independent bookstore, which was rare even then, offering a little bit of everything but specializing in used and rare books.
After a perfunctory interview by owner Brian Perkins, I was hired to be the “night man” on Fridays. It was the ideal job for a 17-year-old bibliophile who had tried and failed on the Dr. Pepper loading docks. I came in after school – between 4 and 4:30 p.m…