Ebenezer Scrooge looked me in the eye and delivered a powerful message about the importance of a good night’s sleep.
Scrooge, who suffered through the most eventful night of interrupted sleep in literary history, woke up on Christmas Day a changed man, a better man. Yes, that’s what a great night of sleep offers to all of us.
As we prepare to take a holiday break, this is a good time to revisit the lessons that Mr. Scrooge teaches us, lessons that we should be applying every day in the new year. Good sleep literally transforms our lives, making us smarter, thinner, healthier and happier. Who doesn’t want all of that?
But too often we sell cheaper sleep, thereby turning a mattress into a commodity and devaluing its importance in our lives.
I come by these thoughts of Scrooge from first-hand experience. At the High Point Market this fall, I literally looked into the eyes of Ebenezer Scrooge. I was in an alcove in the High Point Theatre when I caught the eye of Pedro Silva, whose larger-than-life bronze bust welcomes theatergoers.
Silva, who came to High Point in 1977, the same year that I arrived, by the way, was one of the original actors in the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, which had a long run in High Point.
But he was probably best known for playing Scrooge in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” a cherished event on our holiday calendar. His memorable portrayal helped us usher in the Christmas season on a magical note.
In later years, I occasionally encountered Silva at Harris Teeter, where we both shopped for groceries. I was tempted to share with him one of Scrooge’s greatest lines, uttered after he first sees Marley’s ghost: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.” But, not being a Shakespearean actor, and not wanting to incur the wrath of Scrooge, I wisely refrained and let Silva root about in the dairy section undisturbed.
All of High Point mourned when Silva died of pancreatic cancer in 2019, but his spirit lives on in that bronze bust that caught my eye at market. It was created by James Barnhill, who lives in Greensboro, and it looks out at the alcove as you walk into that room. A plaque under the bust identifies Silva as an “actor, director, administrator, visionary” with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival from 1977 to 2013. And it includes this famous quote from Prospero in “The Tempest”: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Shakespeare could have been talking about the mattress industry. Our products are literally the stuff on which we dream. In the new year, let’s sell the dreams that great sleep make possible.
And in the final weeks of this year, I wish you all good tidings and great joy.
