Tonight, I asked my customers which historical figure they would like to play a board game with. Lincoln and Einstein came up a lot.
This was an interesting trend, because they were also popular for another recent question, "If you could bring back someone from the dead to be your professor, who would you choose?" In that case, C.S. Lewis was the most popular answer (more about that here), followed by Einstein and Lincoln. So, it seems that while Lewis is popular when it comes to professors (he was one), Einstein and Lincoln (check out this fun article examining their commonalities.) are just all-around popular guys (Lewis only came up twice tonight). Why?
Einstein kind of makes sense when it comes to board games, because it would be fun to see how he strategizes (the man was, after all, a genius.) But Lincoln…? He was an amazing president, but as I talked to the customers, I got the sense that Lincoln is just a quick association with the words “historical figure.” I received a number of interesting comments about the Lincoln choice: “I don’t know why [I chose him],” as well as “My mind goes first to presidents.”
(Washington was also a popular response.) A number of customers selected Lincoln because of his honesty, and one person favored him for his hat.
Customers also frequently opted to play Risk with historical strategians: Napoleon, Sun Tzu and Robert E. Lee.
A number of people decided on President Obama, a living historical figure, and there were also a few people who said Jesus (the best person to do ANYTHING with.) Martin Luther King, Jr., and Alexander Hamilton were chosen three or four times, Mother Teresa twice.
One of my favorite answers was Peter, because of the rationale. The young lady felt that Peter would be interesting to play with because he would probably get angry, which would be fun… as long as he didn’t cut off her ear.
My personal favorite response, though, was Lucille Ball.
More than one person wanted a funny historical figure and my mind was blanking, but I think that playing with Lucy would be an absolute… Ball.
Who would you choose? Comment below, and follow me on Facebook for more random questions.
