This is a simple tribute to Ronnie from a former seltzer worker, who happens to write and take pictures. As an employee of the once, pretty well known, Gimme Seltzer company i understand the work ethic, particularly when tested by serious injury.
Ronnie Bieberman brings over fifty years experience in a business that started with Joseph Priestley inventing carbonated water, by accident, in 1767, that soon became popular in Europe. The siphon was invented by Deleuze and Dutillet in 1829, and by the 1880s bottled siphon seltzer was a staple, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, forever associated with the the Three Stooges and comedies of the 30s and 40s, just before the introduction of the commercial soda market after 1945, when it severely declined in demand. And that brings us to Ronnie and the last seltzer men, including Eli Miller and Walter Backerman, both of whom had learned the trade from their fathers who were lifetime seltzer men. When I met Walter his teen-age son was with him on the job and was capable of holding just about any conversation, along with a sense of humor. Must run in seltzer families.
There is information on the internet about Ronnie, and maybe i can add things from experience, as a seltzer man in the late eighties.
The job was truly strenuous. It’s a kick-ass job, with strength and stamina as requirements, and it’s most necessary skills But always marked by the inborn love by all, for New York seltzer, when done in the same time-honored way it’s always been done, and that’s really some thing.
I’ve done a lot of bull labor over my time on earth, and I can say that these Last Seltzer Men, while being experts at pure labor, they were also really on the ball in the areas that mattered – character, wit, knowledge and intelligence, a good sense of humor, focus on people and integrity.
And what made Ronnie or Eli distinctive over my seltzer job was a it was more a job working for someone else getting two bucks a case delivered plus required tips above two floors, but with Ronnie it’s his own business, and he owns the truck, bottles and route, while paying the unique Gromberg Works for the product itself. This easily doubles one’s love of seltzer and makes an owner an innate promoter who can’t help but love the work of seltzer for its combination of business ownership, history, and sense that folks rely on and look forward to their seltzer deliveries for a reason, the same way Ronnie looks forward to working.
The other big difference between my employment for a seltzer company and the seltzer men of Brooklyn was training. Walter and Eli’s fathers were their teachers, but I should have been given, if not training – it’s lifting, carrying and delivering – but one simple instruction – to protect the bottles integrity by stacking the cases on their sides and not straight up so the siphons, and glass would be protected on the old thick bottles.
I took these shots at the Gromberg Seltzer Works in 2013, and, by then, Ronnie had been slinging seltzer for forty-seven years. An independent contractor and business man, Ronnie’s livelihood, seltzer, has put three of his children through college. And, if that’s not enough, there was an event in 2006 on the job which would test his moxie Although it does happen, it does not happen to most drivers, but, like all labor jobs, there is a potential for injury. In Ronnie’s case, he met the biggest danger for seltzer drivers, which is a fall. He fell eight feet off the top of his truck to the pavement below which did tremendous damage.
The one thing that was never in doubt, of course, was that this incident is strictly temporary and seltzer will be delivered again, and for many more years.
Think about it. You spend majority of your waking life doing one thing by virtue of the pure labor of lifting, stacking, carrying and the final dropping off of cases of seltzer. We all know, particularly with a. i. around the corner, this sort of endeavor will fade more, so it’s getting harder to only imagine what a life of muscle toil is like, and, particularly if you own your business, it’s not bad, except for the pain.
Generally speaking, America is at its furtherest it’s ever been from contact with the world and basic human labor, but, after working out or climbing mountains during bouts of leisure, we should know what laboring is like, and it’s about blood circulation, motor skills and limiting pain.
It’s healthy for body and mind. It combines mountain climbing, driving skills, along with people and know-how skills and it all takes energy. Technically, the addition of brain cells is greatly aided by a protein that can only be made a few ways, one of which is strenuous exercise, so with seltzer men, with no vices to begin with, they are characterized by alertness, perception and smarts. By experience i an testify the seltzer business has no dummies, only smart people. Other long-term drivers I met, like Walter and Steve, were very cognizant of their place in the tradition of genuine seltzer, as well as, anything else you wanted to talk about. Combined with general physical fitness, great balancing skills and street smarts, they are deserving of their mythological role in this city. They also have a sense of humor.
You don’t have to have multiple degrees to understand. Simply grab sixty pounds, sling it on your shoulder and deliver it to a door that is five floors away without elevators.
My route, in Manhattan, had, by far, the oldest elevators in the city. The ones with wooden gates and ropes for making the thing go up or down, others were operated by a ring and club, while there was the occasional elevator operators, but, by and large, it was climbing stairs.
As a seltzer man, injured on the job, and seriously so, it’s easy to relate to what Ronnie went through, and it’s also easy to understand his work ethic, to want to return to a physically painful job as soon as possible and take care of his people, who, I’m sure, were more than sympathetic. As for myself, it was over anyways. I had told the boss I was quitting just before the injury because unlike Ronnie, Eli and Walter my seltzer experience was temporary and not a life-long endeavor.
Trading physical pain for a livelihood, and keeping it simple that way, and, with this really nice advantage of not affecting your soul, because it’s not transactional like art and politics but straight-up business. Being your own boss and feeling needed, because it’s true, is also extra pay on a psychological level and motivation to keep moving.
With some people, it’s like that, they like their beverages hand-made, hand-delivered in the same manner it’s been done since 1890, and the job of doing that is important since the 1700s. Seltzer was named after Neider Selters, & Small German spa near Wiesbaden.
In America between the world wars, there were around 500 seltzer men in Brooklyn alone. After WW II with the rise of soft drinks, the goldne era of seltzer declined dramatically until only a handful of seltzer men exist. Popular throughout the neighborhoods, back then, seltzer that was taken straight in the local candy store, was known as 2‐cents plain. An extra penny got you seltzer with a shot of syrup, and a total of four cents in the old days bought the legendary egg cream.
Seltzer bottles have a shooting range of about twelve feet, and, beyond storage, the siphon bottle is a dispensing system as well.
