So a few days ago I did this story about Spiro “The Greek” Drake, Greek’s Playland and the Stone Museum in Monroe, NJ. 

If you haven’t been, Greek’s Playland and the Stone Museum are two of the most bizarre but awesome places in NJ.  And the Greek, well, there aren’t enough words to describe him aptly.  He’s operating on his own wavelength and is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. 

I didn’t have space to detail our entire conversation, so I thought I’d share some of it here. Enjoy.  

The Greek

See I have Alzheimer’s.  It’s great though. You know when you have Alzheimer’s, every morning when I make love with my girl I think it’s a different girl. So I’m waiting for her to get it and we’ll have the perfect relationship. 

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The woman that raised me raised 60 kids to adults. And I made an oath to her, that if I ever made money I’d give half to charity and I ended up giving it all.  But what happened, to give you an idea, we have these stones that cost a dollar. And people come in and you have a poor family, and a little boy or girl will say ‘can’t I have one stone?’ and they can’t afford a dollar. So I’ll go up and I’ll say, ‘where do you live?’ they’ll say ‘well, in Perth Amboy’ and I say ‘you know I wanna start a collection in Perth Amboy can I give you some stones you take them home?’ And I’ll tell the mother, the father, whoever they’re with ‘no it’s ok you know, I can give them away.’ And then what happens is I give them one of each, there’s 48 stones. And I say ‘but if I put one you don’t like you tell me and I’ll put it back’ and his eyes or her eyes are getting so big every time I put another stone in.  He’ll remember that the rest of his life, you know what I mean? Where can you get that much fun ya know? Especially if you have anything you ever wanted in life. Most people, they spend their whole life chasing things… What happens is when you get everything you wanted then you’ve got it made. Then you don’t need anything. Then you find out the people are what’s left, ya know? The people are the most important thing.

I wanted a diamond ring. I got it at Bonded Jewelers in Metuchen, this was more than 40, about 50 years ago. It was a 3-carat pear shaped diamond, it was $1,500.  Now I guess it would be like two or three thousand. When I got it, I couldn’t wear it.  It looked so stupid on my finger. So I never wore it.  Then a friend of mine was getting married, Burt Clinton, he was marrying Mary.  He wanted to borrow $1,500 to buy a ring. So I gave him the money and I said wait a minute I’ve got a ring for ya. I was so excited about giving him the ring that I forgot about the $1,500 so I let him keep it as a gift.

Then I wanted a house with an atrium. So I built one in Edison on Buchanon Road. Bernie Dwyer who was a congressmen lived to the left of me. To the right of me Tony Yelencsics, the mayor he lived there.  Behind me, George Smith, who was president of J&J. So it was a very upscale neighborhood. Built the house in 3 months. Started in the winter, had it done in 3 months. It was a 5,000 sq. foot ranch. You couldn’t do that today, ya know? It’d take us 3 months to get a permit.

I had them two things, and then I wanted a Mercedes, that was the third thing I wanted. I was doing a job in Rumson.  At that time, this is over 40 years ago, a Mercedes cost $15,000.  So I went to Power Motors down in Little Silver. And I had 20 thousand dollar bills, because they had thousand dollar bills back then. I went down there on my lunchtime, we were doing a landscaping job. So I went down there, and I’m in work clothes like I always am. And I say I want to buy a Mercedes, I don’t care what color it is. And maybe I can trade mine in on it ya know? And I’m in a hurry so can I do it now? And the guy says you know how much this costs? And I say yeah about $15,000.  And then a couple walks in, and he says excuse me, and he walks away.  He’s there maybe 10-15 minutes. But when you’re waiting, it feels like an hour. So then when he came back he says you know how much this costs and I say yeah about $15,000, in that neighborhood. And then another couple walks in and he walks away from me. And then I realize that son of a bitch he thinks that I don’t have the money. So I walk over to the woman, the receptionist or whatever she was. I say is that salesman, is he commission or salary? She says he’s both.  I said listen, normally I don’t do this but look, and I peeled out 20 one thousand dollar bills. I say I came here to buy a car and I was in a hurry. She said just a minute I’ll call him.  I said I’m not going to buy a car off that son of a bitch no matter what. I was just mad, but I wanted him to know that he lost a sale.

So I went to Kenny McPherson, he was a realtor in Metuchen on Amboy Avenue, a friend of mine. I said Kenny here’s a blank check go buy me a car and he bought my Mercedes. And everyone knew it was mine, because if I needed a railroad tie I’d throw it in the back.  But materialistic, there’s nothing else I wanted.  I was lucky. Most people never get everything they want, because they want too much.

So you know what I’m doing, I’m keeping my word to momma, ya know?