We lived in a nice house. That section of New Haven was called Westville. As a kid property value meant nothing to me; but being five blocks from Yale Bowl did. That, and being a short bike ride away from Beck’s Drug Store.
The house was a four bedroom center hall Dutch Colonial… I think that is the way a realtor would list it… the fact that I loved the house probably wouldn’t have made the listing.
And neither would this: our dry cleaning was delivered by Jerry, we had a milkman, we had someone who delivered farm fresh eggs, someone named Mike, who spoke little English, cut the grass & we had a guy who delivered seltzer — the seltzer man.
There are many gauges of a person’s wealth… and many would count having a seltzer man as being emblematic of high status & well being.
And maybe you would, too.
For those who don’t know… for those of you who are of a younger vintage, seltzer is not merely bottled “club soda”… it is a mysterious liquid captured in a bottle with a siphon. And this is not easy to come by.
Seltzer… simple? Hardly. In the 19th Century it was considered to be an elixir. And this sacred substance was delivered to our door!!
My Grandmother, Mommie Soph, would also consider this a curative (I suppose)… I can recall her purposefully walking to the fridge after a particularly taxing session of grinding fish for gefilte fish, when she needed to slake her thirst — she would take out the seltzer bottle, put the siphon to her mouth & shoot a jet of resuscitating seltzer down her parched throat.
50 years later… maybe this does not seem like a big deal. Put on the TV on any given Sunday in the Fall and watch an all-pro running back squirting down resuscitating Gatorade on the sideline. I think Mommie Soph is smiling.
I’ll bet that the millionaire all-pro running back, sitting on the bench, shooting down Gatorade, trying to restore his electrolytes would be hard pressed to know what “two cents plain” is… hard pressed to know that it was the foundation of every fountain drink from sarsaparilla to an egg cream.
And when that foundation was served without the trappings of flavour enhancements or accoutrements (like ice cream), it was referred to as two cents plain (because if you added flavour it would set you back a nickel).
Flavours didn’t cost anything in our house on Alston Avenue. That didn’t stop Mommie Soph from enjoying seltzer in its pure state.
And there would be a day when I was sixteen or so and racked with thirst, a thirst that milk would not cure, with no pink lemonade in the fridge, I grasped the seltzer bottle and employed the technique that I had espied Mommie Soph perform countless times… I put the siphon to my mouth and shot a stream of seltzer down my gullet.
I nearly died.
I found new respect for Mommie Soph. All-pro all the way.