I guess I should feel pretty lucky in finding what I enjoy at an early age and still basically doing the same routine 50 some years later! In 1974 I was cooking at the Holiday Inn of Livingston, riding and working on my little Honda CT70 and learning how to play the bass guitar. Nowadays, I’m working at Rutgers University as a Sous Chef, riding and working on my motorcycles and learning how to play the bass guitar!

Many of you may recall Spectrum from LHS Battles of the Bands and other performances with classmates Tom Hammer, Jimmy Cece, Frank Pedalino, Tom Lombarski and Mike McKernan (’78). I’m forever grateful to Jim Cece for suggesting I take up the bass and my other mates for their support.

After graduating LHS in 1977, I decided I was going to ride my bike to Florida and continue my career in food service. I had already had four years of experience cooking at the hotel plus Cedar Hill Country Club and Inglemoor Nursing Home. So while staying with my sis in Coconut Grove, I found a job on a private yacht in Fort Lauderdale. I lived on the yacht, cooked for the owners and crew. We travelled to Cat Cay in the Bahamas, which was basically a millionaires yacht Club on a tiny island near Bimini. When we returned to Lauderdale, I found myself homesick and came back to Jersey.

After working the sauté station at Jacques’ Restaurant in South Plainfield for a couple of years, I landed a job as Head Chef at PSE&G in Newark, serving 2 -3 thousand employees daily. I was transferred to AT&T Piscataway and soon promoted to Food Production Manager then General Manager, while doing course work in Hotel/Restaurant Management at Fairleigh Dickinson University. During my Florida adventure, then returning home, working full time and commuting to college, my musical aspirations had faded a bit. As a result, I made the dumbest mistake of selling my 1974 Fender Precision and Rickenbacker basses! Not having a bass didn’t last long thankfully as I soon bought a great bass I still use daily, another Precision, a 1983 Elite model.

In 1985, I made another career decision which was to own my own business, preparing and selling delicious food. I found a listing for The Salad Factory, a deli in Carteret for sale and made the deal. Little did I know I would spend the next 36 years doing just that, while meeting my lovely wife of 34 years in Carteret, living in Piscataway, raising three wonderful children, continuing to enjoy motorcycles and of course playing the bass.

My bass playing opened the door to the opportunity to play in many bands over the years. In 1999, I co-founded a band with a friend we met through school functions. When we were jamming for a second time in the drummers’ basement one of the wives said, “I guess this is going to be a thing.” To which another replied, “it must be a mid-life crisis.” So, Mid-Life Crisis was born and we did many gigs over the next twenty plus years. I also played in a Black Crowes tribute band called Amorica, a blues band called Raritan Blues Project and other bands here and there.

Currently I’m active with three bands and subbing for a couple others. I had sold my deli in 2021 to try to lessen my load a bit and was soon hired at my current job at Rutgers. I call it my “retirement job” since I can just retire from it when we’re ready. I’m still riding my BMW1200 and restoring my ’77 Honda CB750, the same one I purchased while working at the nursing home.

So I guess the point is, in my case things haven’t changed much. When people ask what I’ve been up to, I usually smile and reply “same ‘ol thing!”.

For Information on some of Paul’s future gigs, check out his Paul Ogden Facebook Page.