I knew it couldn’t be too far away, but I was still shocked to learn Friday morning that Eli Miller, seltzer man extraordinaire, had passed away.

There was no one like Eli. And so, of course, I’ve never experienced anything like his funeral, and the role I got to play.

First about Eli. When I met Eli and spent a day with him in 2010, he was the oldest seltzer man in the country. The one children’s book on seltzer was dedicated to his story, so I already knew him as a myth. Then I got to know him as a man. Below are two videos from that day, one of Eli reading me his book and the second a video I created from our day together.

Writing the section of Eli for Seltzertopia helped me to ground the entire book – who I was writing about, why, and my role in the process. Re-reading it during the editing often left me choked up, as did reading it in public once it was published.

Then Friday morning I received the following email:

It is with great sadness that I have to report that my dear uncle, Eli Miller the Seltzer Man, has passed away yesterday in his home due to complications with his heart. We are all now broken-hearted. Services will be at the Sherman’s Flatbush Memorial Chapel Inc. 1283 Coney Island Avenue BROOKLYN, NY 11230 at 10:00 AM. We would love to have you there but we understand it may be difficult with the virus. Ken Rush, author of Eli the Seltzer Man, and I are going to plan an event later on where we can celebrate his life, seltzer and maybe the end of the pandemic. If you do decide to come join us, we would be honored to have you read a bit from the book about Eli or bring a few copies for the congregants.

COVID-19 would not have stopped me from attending, but a trip to Philly did. Luckily for me, I was not alone – the pandemic prevented family from attending – from Israel, from Philly, and elsewhere. As a result, a teleconference channel was set up (Zoom), and while many filled the room in Brooklyn dozens filtered in from their homes. And from my hotel in Philly (visiting family) I was able to log in to attend the services.

This was wild for me for 3 reasons.

1. Attending a funeral remotely, while entering via video the homes of mourners like me, gave me both distance from the experience combined with a powerful intimacy. We could hear those sharing memories of Eli from the funeral home as easily as we could those sharing from their homes.
2. Hearing those sharing stories while referencing Seltzertopia, often by name (mine and the book), was slightly embarrassing, and touching, and reminded me how my book and that by Ken Rush were both testaments to their beloved Eli. Which led to…
3. Me being asked to provide a Eulogy. This wouldn’t be my first – I eulogized my grandmother, and my good friend who died too early from cancer many years ago. But knowing I’d be in Philly I didn’t think I could arrange it. I sent some words to Jared, the nephew who had contacted me, hoping he might share them. Then as it worked out, I could do it myself. So from my hotel room in Philly, using Zoom, I had the honor of eulogizing Eli Miller, in Brooklyn and, through the teleconference, around the world. Below is what I shared:

My name is Barry Joseph. A few years ago I wrote a book about seltzer, called Seltzertopia, about the men and women who keep the fizz flowing. I am so grateful today for that book because it gave me the opportunity to bring Eli Miller into my life. I was saddened to learn of his passing but touched when his Nephew, Jared, reached out to me this week and asked if I could share a few words from the book. 

I’m honored to have met Eli, to have been given the chance to share his life story, and to help share his legacy with the world, and feel fortunate I can share a bit of that portrait with you this morning. 

Eli was a myth-making machine. After 50 years delivering seltzer door-to-door in NYC, still serving over 150 clients well into his 80s, he had earned the right to tell it like he saw it. There are only two books about seltzer in english, and it’s no surprise BOTH feature Eli. 

Anyone who spoke with Eli would hear stories about his life as a seltzer man, often presented as an industry approaching its end. His stories, with each word highly articulated, as if he were performing on a radio show, addressed the work of bottlers who carbonated the water, the desires of housewives and other clients that caused it to flow, and the backbreaking labor of delivery men like himself, all connected through an invisible network that flowed through the city, connected through people like him. With his stories, Eli claimed a space in the collective consciousness for a dying profession. When he quipped, “I’m an anachronism, what can I tell ya?” he was almost pleading, “Remember us, for soon we’ll be gone.”

He knew the work was hard. “It’s not an easy way to make a living,” he once told me, “but we’re mavericks. We desire independence.” Independence, yes, but men like Eli were depending on their job, which meant their route. “My dad died on a route,” he once told me, having a heart attack while helping Eli deliver some bottles, “and the same thing will happen to me.”

Eli didn’t die on the route, but a part of him was lost when he retired a few years ago. “The rewards in this business are my customers,” he once told me, referring to relationships that went back thirty, even forty, years. “We grew old together.” He knew the spouses of his customers, their kids, sometimes their grandchildren. Delivering bottles was a financial transaction, yes, but it was equal parts a social one, standing in their foyer, or kitchen, or living room, catching up on the family. One of his customers told me, referring to his wife, “She’s into it for the seltzer. For me, it’s Eli.” To which Eli added, as he often said, “I’m the product. Not seltzer. It’s Eli.”

He called himself an anachronism, and worried that his passing might signal the end of his century+ seltzer delivery heritage. Yet when he retired his route was easily absorbed by Alex Gomberg, in his mid-20s which made him the youngest seltzer delivery man in the country, and Walter Backerman, an active 3rd generation delivery man in his 60s. So the irony is that the arc of Eli’s career traced the anticipated disappearance of seltzer delivery in the 1960s and 1970s to the rise of interest in seltzer in the ’80s’ and ‘the 90s (with the introduction of both single serving and flavored seltzers) to our recent explosion of interest in seltzer (whether plan, flavored, hard, or CBDed).

Eli has passed on, but the legacy he leaves behind will be remembered – all the families he touched, and all who took inspiration from his generosity of spirit, his hard-work ethic, his stories of seltzer past, and his hopes for the future. When they think about the importance of supporting local businesses, and the social bonds built within those one-to-one relationships, when they think about the power of local food and more sustainable consumer practices, when they think about how to slow down one’s life enough to make space to incorporate their delivery man – offering so much more than a quick DoorDash – they will think about Eli. 

And now his legacy is reaching all those who continue to read the books about Eli. “Fifty years after I’m dead,” he once told me with pride, “kids are gonna be reading about Eli the Seltzer Man.” 

Eli, we will miss you. But you won’t be soon forgotten.

And here (at this link) is the section from Seltzertopia on Eli. If you have yet to read the book, please download this section and enjoy meeting this remarkable man.

Below are some photos of Eli and my time with him. He will be deeply missed. And I look forward to getting to share his story.