Every Day is Saturday: Marty & Lynda Pagliughi Adjusting Nicely to Retirement
Marty Pagliughi awaits his first full summer embracing a magical phrase: “Whatever you want.”
Avalon’s beloved and iconic former mayor dabbled in this new life for a little more than half the summer of 2024. Now, for the first time in about 50 years, Pagliughi can live by the spirit of that phrase, all the time.
He will celebrate in style, flanked by Lynda, with whom he will celebrate a 49th wedding anniversary in October.
The “Whatever you want” slogan guides him through the early phase of the retirement he launched last July. It underscores why he now rises at 5am, makes coffee, reads the newspaper to get caught up on what’s happening, takes a walk or goes fishing.
The concept allows him to pursue a new “college degree” of running the vacuum cleaner. He’s already taking advanced classes for emptying the dishwasher taught by Lynda, who has reached a similar stage in her life. She recently retired from government positions like New Jersey State Committeewoman for Cape May County and the Vice Chair of the New Jersey GOP.
The Pagliughi couple has an open slate for the golden years.
Fun stuff, eh?
“The first month off last summer was a little strange for me,” Marty recalls. “I would wake up every day and not have anything to do. Little by little, you learn different things.
“This is a special time in life in which you can choose what you want, it’s total freedom,” he adds. “I love to fish. I love to skeet shoot. People ask me about golf, I say, ‘I play golf with a shotgun,’” he laughs, referencing the skeet shooting and clay pigeons world.
At this point, Pagliughi can savor the Seven Mile paradise without having to lead it.
What will happen this summer? Who knows? Marty and Lynda have choices that juggle two realities. One is that they are always around each other, a challenge for most. Two, every day is Saturday and sunny. Every night is Friday night. Doors that were once closed are open.
“Now you can take vacation whenever you want to, at all different times of the year,” he indicates. “Before this, you always had to look and see what might be coming up either for the Borough or for emergency management areas that would require you to be here.”
Ah yes, the Borough and Cape May County. Pagliughi nurtured both with the same affection shown toward his child and two grandchildren. He became more or less the mayor for life, running eight times unopposed for office over a 32-year realm. He is the longest-running and most revered mayor in Avalon history. And then he became a visionary in Cape May County, launching a central 911 dispatch system. It delivers county-wide resources to a budding emergency and saves individual towns money.
If local politics were sports, he’d be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
“I appreciate everything people tell me and I am happy to say that I hear it a lot,” Pagliughi says. “But all I thought I was ever doing was the job that I was elected to do. All I figured I was doing was serving the people.
“Now is the right time to look back on it and be happy. We left the Borough on an excellent footing. I am proud of the work we did with the Cape May County Emergency Management office, too.”
Pagliughi’s ledger is exemplary. He took the mayor’s office in 1991, later adding the Emergency Management position upon retiring from ABB, an international technology and electrical engineering company. In that post, he oversaw 19 national offices, and led – directly or indirectly – roughly 1,000 employees.
Pagliughi’s local mark is everywhere, from Avalon’s free public library to its government relationships and beach replenishment programs. He fought hard to ensure that, testifying several times in Washington to help Avalon gain an important bond with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Forging the relationship involved mountains of tedious paperwork and jumping through administrative hoops.
In what became a golden era for Avalon finance, the borough secured numerous AAA bond ratings and gained a reputation for fiscal discipline. It is the only municipality in Cape May County with no debt obligation.
Project money is always put aside ahead of time, removing financial jolts to taxpayers. Avalon has maximized its foresight and governmental contacts.
Beyond those nuts and bolts, the borough he guided features the entertainment aspect of Surfside Park. Recreation facilities also exist for soccer, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, tennis, and pickleball.
Pagliughi also reflects the small-town personal touch. A Dennisville resident was recently spotted with an Avalon sweatshirt inside a Marmora dentist office.
She was told a reporter had just been talking with the former mayor of that town.
“Oh, Marty,” she said, smiling. “What a good guy. He married me.”
Turns out Pagliughi had performed the wedding ceremony on the beach for the couple in 2013. She chose him because he had done the same thing for her in-laws many years before.
Hearing the anecdote sparked one of Marty’s favorite passions: storytelling, from a rich memory reservoir.
“I’ll never forget being asked to do a wedding on the beach at sunrise,” he recalls, smile broadening. “It was going to be a wedding of an Army major and an Army captain. The bride was the captain. They just wanted a private ceremony, real quick, they were about to be deployed.
“Well, I didn’t give him a private ceremony,” he chuckles. “Nope, we had the fire company, the American Legion, etc., all out in full uniform. We made a big deal about that. After they’d recited their vows, I said, ‘Major, you may kiss the Captain.’ I think they were pleased.”
“What made Marty a great leader is the fact that he wasn’t a politician,” Lynda adds. “He went out of his way to help others in ways that may seem crazy.
“People would get a parking ticket and ask him to fix it. You know he doesn’t want to do that, so guess what he did? Almost nobody knows this, but Marty would take that person’s ticket and pay it himself. There were so many things he did to look out for people.”
Lynda chose being in the background during Marty’s tenure as a supporting wife rather than touting her considerable political career.
“Women hate politics, especially when their husbands are involved, because of the terrible things people say that are not true,” she says, speaking in general terms. “One thing that has been helpful for Marty and I is that I can relate to what’s happening with him because I have been there. We actually met through politics.”
Marty and Lynda met in Cumberland County, both involved in local politics. Their union sprouted wings both here and throughout state government.
“When Marty would go up to Trenton, they asked him if he was related to Lynda,” she laughs.
Lynda also likes the power-behind-the-throne joke attributed to Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine.
According to legend, Clementine tells Winston she had spoken with a street sweeper who once had been “madly in love” with her. Asked if that meant she could have been a street sweeper’s wife, she said no, that man would have become prime minister.
Lynda had been a flight attendant, traversing the world. She ventured into real estate and then became the coordinator of economic development for the South Jersey Transportation Authority.
That led to running the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Agency in North Cape May. Along the way, she garnered and recently left the Committeewoman and GOP jobs. Now, Marty has joined her.
“When I was retired and Marty was working, I got a lot of things done,” she laughs. “Now he is everywhere. But all in all, this makes us closer. We can do more things together and if there is a storm coming here, it is someone else’s problem.
“In the past, we could only take a vacation for a couple of weeks and if there was a weather event, Marty felt like he could not leave.
“Now, if we want to go away for a month, we will be able to do that. We might do that next winter and stay a long time in Florida.”
Lynda might also show Marty some European hot spots in Italy. Germany, Dubai, and Brussels are also among the area she rates highly.
The couple may opt to go there. They may not. They can decide something one day and be thousands of miles away the next.
Or, they can simply enjoy being here, relishing the family and life at the beach.
Marty and Lynda Pagliughi navigate a wonderful time in their lives. Stress is a distant memory and plans are an option. What matters most is the three words that guide whatever decisions they make: “Whatever You Want.”
It’s their golden ticket to the golden years. And it’s well-earned.
