Beautiful Packard. Not unlike the one Otmar Holbien drove back when Fort Stockton had its own philharmonic orchestra.

He bought it new at Pecos Packard when he first got the gig at the FSPO and drove it the whole time he lived in town. Nobody could ever remember seeing him dressed in anything but black, just like his Packard 8, formal as a funeral.

His car reflected his career: more a Series than a model year. The woodgrain interior was like that of the bass violin he played, both paying his bills and romancing the hearts of young ladies all over the prairies and pastures of west Texas who were not used to his particular level of refinement.

While there may have been a number of different pre-sets available on the vertical radio located next to the rich mahogany glove box, there was only one sound that ever escaped from the massive chrome speaker to the left of it. “If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it,” is what Otmar always said.

The music he played seemed to help wash off the dust and grime that tended to cover Fort Stockton. If the town was a sow’s ear, Otmar was its silk purse, and he knew it. The hood ornament may have been the ‘Goddess of Speed’, but he was the God of something even greater.

While the style of the ’49 Packard would quickly fall out of favor, Otma still made it look good a decade and a half later. In fact, the only thing more famous around town than his 23 Series Sedan was his performance of Beethoven’s Ninth back in the spring of ’64.

The Ninth is a long piece, not for the faint of heart. There’s a stretch of about twenty minutes in which Otmar and the other bass violinists had absolutely nothing to do. Inasmuch as the Governor Coke Stevenson Memorial Orchestra Hall was located right next to the Lucky Lady Lounge on Laramie Lane just off the courthouse square, Otmar seized the opportunity to motion his fellow violinists to sneak out for a quick one next door.

After slamming down a couple Lone Star Longnecks, the second chair violinist looked at his watch and said, “We better get back!”

“No worries,” Otmar explained. “I didn’t want to be rushed, so I tied together the last several pages of the conductor’s score. It’ll take him a few extra minutes to get it all sorted out.”

They had another quick round. The third chair violinist said, “What do you do with someone who has no talent, but wants to play music? Give him two sticks and let him play drums at the back of the orchestra!”

Otmar asked, “What do you do if he has even less talent? Take away one stick and put him in the front of the orchestra!” Still snickering, they made their way past the Packard in the parking lot and took their seats back on stage.

Mayor Goodman’s wife, sitting in the front row, nudged her husband and pointed out that the conductor looked a bit on edge.

“Damn right he is.” the mayor huffed. “It’s the bottom of the Ninth, the bassists are loaded, and the score is tied.”

Wasn’t long after that when the town council got tough on sax and violins and shut the orchestra hall down, turning it into the LBJ Bingo Parlor. Otmar packed his Packard and pointed it west towards Santa Fe and more progressive patrons of the arts.