The Pick-Me-Up

May 28, 2026 by DickH Posted in Uncategorized Leave a Comment

The Pick-Me-Up

By Leo Racicot

I’m sitting here wondering if the charming American custom of the afternoon pick-me-up still exists. I asked around and got a lot of blank stares. It’s safe to say the afternoon pick-me-up is cousin to the British tea time tradition, that hour of the day when the body and the mind begin to slump and a restorative timeout is sought. The afternoon pick-me-up isn’t quite the same. The pick-me-up as I knew it is less formal than the ceremonial UK teatime. American pick-me-ups have a looser dynamic, an almost spur-of-the-moment need to sit down amid the day’s activities and stop for a breather. Teatime in England appears to be a necessity; the British can’t live without their tea. In UK-produced movies, television series and books, no matter what dreadful occurrence has beset the principals, the kettle is always put on the burner in the belief that a good, strong pot of tea will see the tragedy through.

The pick-me-up is less formal than the ceremonial UK. At our grandmother’s and aunt’s place, after a day’s long slog, there was always, around 3 p.m., a practice of sitting down at table with a cup of coffee and a plate of sweets. This is the pick-me-up formula – hot coffee to be enjoyed (and enjoyed slowly, leisurely) along with a sweet, a cookie, a piece of candy, a small dish of ice cream. The respite is less about food and drink as it is about taking a period of quiet time for oneself and one’s company to simply “be”. Amicable chat might be a part of the break but usually, everyone gets quiet, sits in the quiet, admiring the sun coming through the window, the silence in the hallway. A contemplative pause washes over the room and its occupants who might, in fact, be thinking about absolutely nothing as they nosh. Think of the pick-me-up as a middle of the day culinary nap.

When I was living in Las Vegas, Helen and Cookie observed this habit. I came to look forward to it as the midday heat of the desert descended and the curtains were drawn. Coffee was made; it need not be percolated; sometimes all Helen had in the house was instant Maxwell. She’d place a box of assorted cookies before us and off we three would disappear in reverie. I thought of it as moments of “Enough is enough”, enough of chores, enough of errands, enough of everything, to give oneself permission to just sit.

At the Shea’s home, for the nine years I was working there, Ms. Shea held to this routine. Daily, no matter what else was going on, at 3 pm on the dot, she’d make her way from her second-floor rooms to the downstairs kitchen where she’d bid me make herself, Richard and me a hot cup of coffee and bring out of the cupboard a confection or two. Often these pauses would consist of the three of us. If Richard was out, say, at an appointment, it would be his mother and me. Because she didn’t always join in on the breaks, Richard and I would be by ourselves. I treasured these alone times with him, especially when he’d free himself of his tantrums, his nerves, his fretting. The pause had the power to calm him; the pick-me-up, a pocket of peace in a mostly chaotic place.

There was a tree in the backyard, a wise, old oak. It was so sturdy it had a steadying influence, a calming effect. Richard’s and my eyes were especially drawn to it in the Fall of the year when it became ablaze with Autumn light, Its quiet reds, its silent yellows slumbering in the afternoon sun hypnotized us both as we nibbled noiselessly on our cookies, soundlessly sipped our coffee. There was no not liking him at these times together, not that I ever didn’t like him. I liked him from the moment I met him, liked him from the beginning of our nine years together. And he, thank the gods, liked me; I used my ability to speak in foreign accents to soothe him, quiet his furrowed brow when tantrums lurked behind it on the verge of explosion. He tuned in most keenly to my Irish accent, my singing of the old Irish folk songs he and I had both known as children, at different times in our lives. He always closed his eyes whenever I’d sing to him, his favorite being Farewell to Tarwathie which I’d learned listening to Judy Collins’ version on her Whales and Nightingales album. As a background to the song, the mournful moans of real Humpback whales added to the natural beauty of the song. I once, as a joke, mimicked for Richard the whale sounds and had him laughing and laughing. I laughed too.

It wasn’t popular in the house to say you liked Ms. Shea. She could be difficult. Her philosophy was that you had pitched your tent in her home and you would abide by her rules. For a tiny person, she had a giant temper — what Joe Perkins referred to as her “cow voice”. I watched many a strapping 6 foot and taller varsity football player quake and shake in absolute terror as this little knick-knack of a woman shook her crooked finger at them, giving them the “What for”. But I liked her. Not exempt from anyone else in that house from being chastised, I was nevertheless drawn to her sense of humor, her fascinating anecdotes about her life; her personal history among the movers and shakers of her time. She was impressed that I was able to discuss Spinoza and Schopenhauer with her at the table, knew who she was talking about when she told me she’d studied under Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. She especially liked that I called her Ms. Shea, not Mrs. Shea, like all the other guys did, liked the feminist sound of it, and once confessed to me that I reminded her of her own brother, a doctor, Uncle Doctor Sidney Druse whom she said I resembled both in my facial features and in my demeanor. We had some of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had. I came to love looking into her eyes, eyes cloudy with time and the years. Those eyes had looked into the eyes of men like Alger Hiss, Franklin Roosevelt, Abe Fortas. Ms. Shea was a bit of living history. At Christmastime, Thanksgiving time, she’d leave a bundle of her copies of The New York Times Review of Books and The London Spectator outside the door of my room. Always, a thrill. Gifts at the holidays were always the same — a bottle of sherry and a box of those Ferrero Rocher chocolates, the chocolates wrapped in gold foil.

The funniest of the pick-me-up parties (though only funny in retrospect) was the time she got merry and festive (not very often) and decided for Hallowe’en, she’d have a little something extra as a surprise for Richard. She ordered a luscious, elaborately decorated cake for him from Cardullo’s Gourmet Shoppe in Harvard Square (wildly expensive), ice cream from Hurrell’s. Well, came the time for the kitchen shindig, I completely forgot it was Day Light Savings Time, and the time change. Ms. Shea told us she’d be down at 3, adding, “I might come to the party, I might not.” So, when at the appointed time, she hadn’t arrived from upstairs, I assumed she wasn’t coming (she often didn’t join Richard at these soirees she herself had arranged). So — Richie and I dug in. No sooner had we swallowed our sumptuous cake, the last of the ice cream treat, than whom should appear in the kitchen doorway but Ms. Shea, dressed in a Halloween gown, peckered all over with little witches and pumpkins (the sort of wonderful dress she never ever wore). Her face was dolled up to the max — eye shadow, lipstick, the full magilla. Again, something she never did. She had a limelight smile on her face which, when she saw we were just finishing up, vanished. She looked crestfallen. Panicking, I explained the time change had thrown me, that I’d gotten confused and because she hadn’t shown up when she said she might, figured she wasn’t coming and that we had better start without her. I apologized profusely. Richard, wiping the last cake crumbs from his mouth with his Halloween napkin, slyly chuckled, “Late for her own party…” Rather than murdering me and Richard both, Ms. Shea howled, louder than the loudest holiday goblin as she made her way back upstairs in the sad/comic afternoon. Saved!

Looking back from a distance of nearly 20 years, as hard a personality as Ms. Shea was, as hard as it often was, working with Richard, I can see now they picked me up with more than cups of coffee and treats. As my former co-worker in that house, James Stephen Lee, said to me a few years ago, “My, but weren’t we lucky to know them.”

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