Behind the Line: Paul Fehribach
Topic: Background
The Skinny: What Makes You You?
Q: Share your origin story. Where were you born?
Memorial Hospital, Jasper, Indiana
Q: Did you move around a lot growing up, or did you generally stay in one place?
Born and raised in Jasper, Indiana. I have always tended to stay put. After school in Bloomington, Indiana, I stayed there for some years. So, I lived in Jasper for 18 years, Bloomington, Indiana for 9, and I've been in Chicago ever since.
Q: When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A chef. Never any doubt about it. In retrospect, it seems so strange that I went into music for college.
Q: Reach way back. What was your very first job?
I was a paper boy for the Louisville Courier-Journal. I was probably twelve. It was a lot of fun because I was the only carrier for that paper in town, unlike the local paper which had a dozen or so. This meant my route covered the whole town with a lot of room to ride in between stops. I was quite the boy about town!
Q: Did you know you were going into the hospitality industry when you were in high school?
No, at that time I thought I would wind up teaching music. Turns out that was a temporary diversion. From a very young age I wanted to be a chef. Then, I fell in love with trombone.
Q: When in school, what besides cooking were your academic interests?
History and Music, trombone specifically. I'm still always working on a history-related book for pure enjoyment. Human history is such a fascinating thing, and I think it can often provide a window into the future.
Q: If you had another career before this, what made you change?
You not only have to do what you love, but also what you can excel in.
Q: How many languages do you speak? Which ones?
Pretty much just English, though I have history with both German and Spanish. I'm terribly out of practice on those languages, but they are definitely still in my head, somewhere.
Q: What was your high school superlative (best dressed/most likely to succeed/etc.)?
I don't think I won any of those, although if "most eccentric" was an option, I probably would have won that
Q: Say you were not a chef. What would you be, and why?
A sommelier, because I love wine and it is so central to the pursuit of a perfect dining experience. Wine is endlessly interesting, with geography and history playing major parts, two of my favorite subjects.
Q: If you could have written your high school yearbook, what would you have been “most likely to"?
Win Marching Bands of America Nationals