Sharing the Wealth: My Story

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Winter 2003 by Kourvetaris, George

Sharing the Wealth: My Story, by Alex Spanos. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2002.

This is a book as much about Alex Spanos' life story and his family as it is a living history of Greek American experience. Sharing the Wealth: My Story is an extraordinary book of an-illustrious Greek American who dreamed the American Dream and made it a reality. Alex Spanos, one of the wealthiest and most philanthropic Greek Americans, tells his life story as a drama so that the reader never becomes bored. It is a book full of episodes and anecdotes, blended with life and work ethic to the extent that both are inseparable. Alex Spanos has a way of story telling which gives us vignettes into the secrets of this success and what it is like growing up "Greek" during the 1920's and 1930's.

Sharing the Wealth: My Story is not literally sharing the wealth but sharing his story, which to Alex Spanos is like sharing the wealth.

The book is more than an autobiography of Alex Spanos, the dreamer, the philanthropist, the family man, the compassionate father, the lovely romantic husband. It is also an unfolding series of ups and downs. It is his life and work. It is about the great Depression, WWII, his wife and children and family, his failures and successes, about the "power of family", his devotion to his faith and country, his American and Greek identities and experience which Alex Spanos is proud of.

Sharing the Wealth: My Story shows how an ordinary person from an ordinary family can reach such economic success, which according to the author went beyond any expectations. But what makes the book a great social history is the fact that Spanos's success was born out of family conflict, hard work, luck, and choices he made in his life. Alex Spanos tells his autobiography in thirteen (13) compact chapters or 254 pages.

In this book Spanos does not want to brag about his wealth and economic success. It is beyond success. His philanthropic contributions to social causes and to the community are well known. Sharing the Wealth is an intellectual effort by the author to share his life story with people who can learn and share the insights, knowledge, wisdom, and the "stories of success." It is a book about the sociology of knowledge, a life and work in its social context. His story started when his father decided to leave Greece and landed on the shores of Ellis Island.

In his First Chapter, "The Secret of Success", Spanos shows how he became an instant celebrity by buying the San Diego Chargers, and reached "the realization of a lifelong dream." In his words this was "the crowning achievement of fifty years of hard work" (p. 2). Buying the San Diego Chargers made Spanos a household word. Spanos' success however came with the construction business and not with sports. He tells us of his decision to leave his father's bakery business and follow his own journey.

In Chapter Two, "Growing Up Greek," Spanos describes his immigrant beginnings as second generation Greek American growing up in a Greek immigrant family. He narrates his father's journey to America in 1912, his return to his native village Naxiri in Messinai, Southern Greece, and later his return to Greece to marry his mother Evanthia from another village. Spanos gives an inside view of his family and speaks about his mother in laudatory terms. According to him, she was unhappy by coming to America. Of course, this was not unusual in those days. In his case, Spanos argues that he was born in a family of conflict because his parents were incompatible.

Spanos is very candid and open about both of his parents, who according to him, were always in conflict. Despite this they managed to have six children. Alex was born on September 28, 1923. He makes the point that his mother came from a better family background than his father did. His father was strict and never praised him. While his father was stern, his mother was affectionate. Both of his parents loved their children very dearly but in different ways.

Alex described his father's jobs as a butcher, a baker, and a restaurateur. He grew up in a farming town of Stockton, California. Alex came to appreciate hard work. Many times, Alex Spanos ran away as a youngster from his father's wrath. Whenever he was in trouble, he would go to his Godfather's house and his Uncle Chris.

In Chapter Three, Spanos details his mother's escape with three of her children to New York. She left his father with the other two younger children. His father is portrayed here as a very violent man who came to the station with a gun but the police carried him away. Alex tells us that he was homesick in New York and wanted to go back to his hometown of Stockton. Finally, all returned home, but his father never forgave his mother for leaving him, but they still had another child. The birth of the sixth child did not improve the relationship of his parents.

Spanos describes his association with Kay a Greek American girl whom he met in high school for whom he had a secret love. He tells us how he left school and enlisted in the US Air Force, but was later dismissed from the Cadet Air Force School. He was wrongly accused of being responsible for a pregnancy. He shows how disappointed he was for being dismissed for a crime he never committed. From Nebraska the Army sent him to Florida where he met his future wife Faye.