Like a lot of things, it all comes back to the Patriots.
I run another website which had inexplicably been all but shut down on Google Search rankings in early December. After a couple months of a 90% traffic drop I’d all but given up on the resurrection of the site.
True to her spirit, Nan remained ever positive. She checked google daily looking for various search requests to see if we’d come back yet. I told her not to bother anymore, because it was out of my hands, and really looked like the site was toast. After her repeated calm reassurances that the site would bounce back, with me admittedly not listening, Mom’s tone finally changed the Friday before the Super Bowl.
“It’s going to come back. I know it. You know it, so don’t you dare quit on this site yet,” she said in an equally loving and stern tone.
With far more important matters at hand, I didn’t fight back to argue that logically, things looked bleak, and it was out of my hands. I left the conversation there, but her words stuck with me.
Fast forward two days to Super Bowl Sunday, which is traditionally our biggest traffic day of the year. Somewhat nervous over how bad traffic might be, I never logged on to see how our traffic looked. Later that day, the site co-owner Craig, texted me excitedly to announce that it looked like we were back in the game. After a week of fully restored traffic, I began joking with him that Nan willed us back in the game and related our resurrection to myth of how the Patriots got to the Super Bowl this year.
“If Myra H. Kraft helped push the Ravens field goal wide left, then Nan S. Hinds helped put our site back on the map,” I emailed Craig.
“So are you going to get NSH patches and wear them on your shirt like the Patriots did all season?”
2 weeks later,… I most certainly am.
Team NSH was born there. The Patriots honored their matriarch all season by wearing a simple blue patch with MHK emblazoned in white text. Clean, understated, elegant, and classy. Four words that aptly describe Nan if you ask me, and the perfect way to honor our matriarch.
This simple email conversation I had with Craig when I should have been working, may have wound up as the best misuse of company time ever. It spawned Team NSH; the site, the stickers (which we have plenty of, and will be getting out to anyone interested), and it’s gotten mom on Twitter. Pretty effective emails if you ask me.
If you’re interested in stickers, shoot me a note at TeamNanHinds@gmail.com and we’ll get them out as requests come in.
-Todd
