Speaker 1: Welcome to on the Job. On today's episode, we're headed
Speaker 1: up to the Granite State to speak with John Bethell, who,
Speaker 1: after years of service to his country as a Navy chaplain,
Speaker 1: re entered the civilian life as a small town shop owner.
Speaker 1: But as different as the two livelihoods are, as we'll hear,
Speaker 1: John discovered they actually had quite a few things in common.
Speaker 1: When John Bethell was in the Navy for two years,
Speaker 1: he was stationed on the Greek island of Crete. And yes,
Speaker 1: it's okay to be jealous. I certainly am. But as
Speaker 1: we know, for all the allure of a foreign destination,
Speaker 1: especially one as beautiful as crete, being in a distant
Speaker 1: land poses challenges, especially when you forget your wallet.
Speaker 2: It was my second day in the village. I forgot
Speaker 2: my wallet at my house, and I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to appoly gives or say like, my money's not here.
Speaker 2: Like I couldn't say any of that, and so I
Speaker 2: I was like, do you have to wash dishes? I
Speaker 2: didn't know what they're gonna make me do, and so
Speaker 2: I uh, I was explaining to him, like, hey, my
Speaker 2: wallet's there, I'll be right back. He goes, Oh, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're the American. You're in the yellow house. We know
Speaker 2: where you are, like, and it was the only taverna
Speaker 2: Taverna's a little restaurant. He's like, they're the only tavarna
Speaker 2: in the village. He's like, you know where you gonna go.
Speaker 1: And John, who's originally from New York City, found this
Speaker 1: small town trust amazing. And that's not the only thing
Speaker 1: he loved about life in Greece.
Speaker 2: I was very attracted to the way that it seems
Speaker 2: as though they scheduled stuff stuff. Things are open and
Speaker 2: closed as they're open and closed, and figure it out.
Speaker 2: Some things will be closed for a month because or
Speaker 2: there's the feast of Saint Whoever and everything's closed, or
Speaker 2: it's the feast of Saint Whoever and everything's open until,
Speaker 2: like you know, for days. And I remember when I
Speaker 2: first got there, I thought, like, how do these people
Speaker 2: live like this? But then after two years of it,
Speaker 2: the question I was asking myself was what do I
Speaker 2: have to do to live like this?
Speaker 1: A big part of the reason that John was so
Speaker 1: enamored of this Greek way of doing things was that
Speaker 1: it was so completely foreign to him because in the Navy,
Speaker 1: not only was he a small cog in a very
Speaker 1: big wheel. But as a navy chaplain, he never really
Speaker 1: had any time off.
Speaker 2: With my job as a department head, and I had
Speaker 2: had a duty phone with me. So this is a
Speaker 2: phone that you This becomes your the phone becomes your mistress.
Speaker 2: And I had that phone with me everywhere. If I
Speaker 2: went on vacation, it wasn't really vacation. If I went
Speaker 2: to visit somewhere else in Europe, it wasn't because I
Speaker 2: had to have that phone, and I was the only
Speaker 2: chaplain for the whole piece. And so you're always always connected.
Speaker 2: There's always a way to reach you, and that it
Speaker 2: leaves your adrenal glands at like a sort of like
Speaker 2: a quiet low boil, do you know, Like you're always
Speaker 2: like you're just waiting for this thing to ring, and
Speaker 2: nobody calls chaplain's like with great news. So it's like
Speaker 2: if it rings, it's well, somebody's dying or dead, or
Speaker 2: there's some other situation, which of course I signed up for.
Speaker 2: I get that, but to be bound to not turn
Speaker 2: it off was a challenge.
Speaker 1: So after two years of being stationed in Greece being
Speaker 1: tethered to a service phone, John was feeling and inkling
Speaker 1: to try something new, albeit while incorporating some of the
Speaker 1: things he came to love about life and crete.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're industry, you know, they work, you know,
Speaker 2: but they sort of put work in its place. And
Speaker 2: the reason that I thought about having a shop was
Speaker 2: that I fell in love with the idea of looking
Speaker 2: at the clock and saying it's five o'clock, it's closing time,
Speaker 2: it's quitting time, and locking the door and walking away.
Speaker 1: And ever since John was a kid, he had this
Speaker 1: idea of opening a print shop, one of those old
Speaker 1: fashioned kinds with those big, heavy machines operated by hand,
Speaker 1: which lay out the colors one at a time.
Speaker 2: I've always loved printing as a hobby. My dad's retired
Speaker 2: from the printing house of a newspaper, and I kind
Speaker 2: of always grew up around that sort of stuff. And
Speaker 2: I was just going to open up a print shop.
Speaker 2: At first. I was just going to do a letter
Speaker 2: press printing shop, and probably most of my work was
Speaker 2: going to be online or through an SSI shop or
Speaker 2: through the website.
Speaker 1: So we starts bringing it up in conversation with some
Speaker 1: of his shipmates, saying, you know, I'm thinking about getting
Speaker 1: back to the civilian life, maybe opening up a print shop,
Speaker 1: ideally in some small town in the US, where I
Speaker 1: could replicate this Greek village way of living and lo
Speaker 1: and behold. One of his shipmates says, hmm, that sounds
Speaker 1: like where I'm from, Laconi in New Hampshire, and immediately
Speaker 1: John's ears perk up, because though he was born and
Speaker 1: raised in NYC, he spent his summers in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: and always had a fondness for the state.
Speaker 2: Part of the other reason that I really wanted New
Speaker 2: Hampshire to begin with is that I grew up spending
Speaker 2: my summers here. Like a lot of people. I was
Speaker 2: down on Spotford Lake, so it's like the southwest corner
Speaker 2: of the state, over by Keen.
Speaker 1: But like a lot of the people that spend their
Speaker 1: summers in New Hampshire, they don't tend to stick around
Speaker 1: much later into the year. And Laconia is much further
Speaker 1: north than where John spent his time in New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: a state that with every mile you go up, feels
Speaker 1: like another leap closer to the North Pole, which that
Speaker 1: ship made of his might have failed to mention when
Speaker 1: he pitched Laconia yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember actually texting him. It was mid April and
Speaker 2: I was sitting on the couch shivering, and I remember
Speaker 2: asking him like, Hey, how long does this last? Because
Speaker 2: it was a cold that gets to your bones. It's
Speaker 2: a mean kind of cold. Yeah, so that part of
Speaker 2: it was tough. The absolute amount of cold and snow
Speaker 2: that year. There was a lot of snow that year too.
Speaker 1: And the town itself wasn't exactly a fantasy land either. Yes,
Speaker 1: there was a lovely old main street with beautiful brick
Speaker 1: buildings dating back to the previous century, but like a
Speaker 1: lot of the small cities in America, Laconia was far
Speaker 1: from thriving.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What do you do when you hit with the
Speaker 2: hard reality of boarding windows, right, and we have a
Speaker 2: pretty decent influx of like unhoused people, homeless people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a that's a that's a tough one to deal with.
Speaker 1: But despite its current condition, John could see the potential.
Speaker 1: So we put on his snow boots and went around town,
Speaker 1: introducing himself to some of the local business owners to
Speaker 1: get a feel for the place, and very quickly he
Speaker 1: experienced that small town charm.
Speaker 2: I said, Hey, when they kind of want to do this,
Speaker 2: and the cobbler said, you know, we have a cobbler.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of downtown Disney we have. The cobbler said, well,
Speaker 2: the frame shop is going to he's trying to sell it,
Speaker 2: and it's he's going to sell it for a pretty
Speaker 2: good price because he's just trying to get out of here.
Speaker 1: So frame shop as in picture and art framing shop,
Speaker 1: which John immediately thinks would go perfectly well with his
Speaker 1: vision for a printing shop.
Speaker 2: So I asked the cobbler, and the cobbler told me
Speaker 2: to go talk to this guy. And I went and
Speaker 2: talked to the guy and he said, yep, you can
Speaker 2: have it for a song. And so he just wanted
Speaker 2: to move on, and it was kind of a fire sale.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, the previous owner even let
Speaker 1: John take a look at his accounts to get a
Speaker 1: sense of what sort of business he'd be acquiring.
Speaker 2: So I wasn't starting the shop out of absolutely nothing,
Speaker 2: saying you know what this town needs is a frame shop. Yeah,
Speaker 2: A yeah, That's how I got the shop by walking
Speaker 2: downtown with a cup of coffee my handed, and then
Speaker 2: I applied for the business loan and that was it.
Speaker 1: When we come back from the break, John Bethel opens
Speaker 1: his doors.
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Speaker 1: We're back with John Bethel, who, after years in the Navy,
Speaker 1: moved up to the small city of Laconia, New Hampshire
Speaker 1: to open a custom frame and printing shop.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's called Piedmont. Piedmont Print and Frame. So Piedmont
Speaker 2: literally means foothills in French. And I figured that we
Speaker 2: lived in the foothills of the Bellnet Mountains, and I
Speaker 2: kind of wanted to honor where we were, where we
Speaker 2: were located, and at the same time, I didn't want
Speaker 2: to name it after myself, so I thought Piedmont would
Speaker 2: be pretty cool. I could have called it Foothills. I
Speaker 2: should have called it foothills. A lot of people think
Speaker 2: that Piedmont is my last name, and so people downtown
Speaker 2: have called me John Piedmont, which is one time somebody
Speaker 2: walking down the street called said, hey, what's going on JP. So,
Speaker 2: in attempting to not name it after myself, I've actually
Speaker 2: named it after myself because a lot of people downtown
Speaker 2: think that that's my name, and that's okay. It makes
Speaker 2: me less searchable. Nice.
Speaker 1: So in a way, you're sort of playing this character
Speaker 1: of John Piedmont, the store owner, right, the.
Speaker 2: Guy who like dons his aprin and like an old
Speaker 2: Italian man, sweeps the sidewalk every morning when I go outside, Like,
Speaker 2: I kind of like it. We all have a role
Speaker 2: to play.
Speaker 1: I suppose anyone who's lived in a small city or
Speaker 1: town probably knows that feeling of having a role to play,
Speaker 1: as if the community you live in was a big
Speaker 1: theater production and you're just one of the characters on
Speaker 1: its stage. John definitely felt that effect in Laconia, especially
Speaker 1: as his business was located where the old framing shop was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was the little piece of paper that they
Speaker 2: put the understudy paper that they put in the playbill.
Speaker 2: Right now, Kevin used to be played by Kevin. Now
Speaker 2: it's being played by Johnny.
Speaker 1: But John did do things to let people know that
Speaker 1: he was not the same store owner as before. For
Speaker 1: one thing, he threw a lot of the old clutter
Speaker 1: out and redesigned the place to be more inviting. And second,
Speaker 1: when you walk into John's shop, you won't be met
Speaker 1: with a generic Hi, how can I help you?
Speaker 2: And it's annoying, right, Like you go to a store
Speaker 2: and they say can I help you find something? No, like,
Speaker 2: I'm just walking like, let me look. If you say
Speaker 2: how can I help you? Know the relationship has become transactional.
Speaker 2: And if it's become transactional, then that's how I'm going
Speaker 2: to get out of you? Is this one transaction? And
Speaker 2: so when people come in, you are to make yourself
Speaker 2: the vulnerable one. And you say, you offer your name first,
Speaker 2: you know, say what's your name? You go, hey, I'm John,
Speaker 2: what's your name? And then they're like, hey, whatever, I'm
Speaker 2: Avery And you go, okay, Hey, I was about to
Speaker 2: make a cup of coffee, would you like one? I
Speaker 2: was about to pour a beer, would you like one?
Speaker 1: So you're saying you drink a lot all day, whether
Speaker 1: it be caffeinated or alcoholic.
Speaker 2: The rule is that I can only drink beer after
Speaker 2: the glass has been cut. So if I learned that
Speaker 2: the hard way, so once, once I crack a beer,
Speaker 2: then we're not cutting any more. Last for the day.
Speaker 2: So yes, something about doing it with you? Right? If
Speaker 2: I just said do you want to beer? That's one thing.
Speaker 2: But if I say I was about to have a beer,
Speaker 2: do you want one? You're almost always going to say yes,
Speaker 2: or a glass of prosecco? Right, and then eventually, look,
Speaker 2: you have a poster rolled up under your arm. I
Speaker 2: know what you're going to spend. Why rush to that
Speaker 2: when I could build a relationship with you? And like
Speaker 2: the glass of prosecco cost me maybe two bucks, But
Speaker 2: that's not the important thing. The important thing is like
Speaker 2: you've built a relationship and now they want to come back,
Speaker 2: and then they tell their friends about it.
Speaker 1: Probably the hardest part for John about walking away from
Speaker 1: his Navy career were the relationships he built as a chaplain,
Speaker 1: a position that brought John incredibly close with people who
Speaker 1: were sharing their most intimate and vulnerable thoughts. But it
Speaker 1: turns out that, unbeknownst to him, his new role as
Speaker 1: a shop owner still involved dealing with people in their
Speaker 1: times of need.
Speaker 2: For wanting to walk away from being like an active priest.
Speaker 2: It has not stopped, right, because people don't frame things
Speaker 2: that are not important to them. Not only do they
Speaker 2: not frame things that aren't important to them, but there's
Speaker 2: a reason they're framing. It's because they want to show
Speaker 2: it off, right, So now they have a story to tell.
Speaker 2: And what do we do when we gather at during
Speaker 2: the liturgy is we sit and listen to stories.
Speaker 1: John remembers one time a woman brought a fork into
Speaker 1: the shop.
Speaker 2: Her mom died, and everyone else in her family like hungry,
Speaker 2: hungry hippos. They just sort of grabbed whatever was there,
Speaker 2: and what was left was this sterling silver fork. So
Speaker 2: she framed it. She's like, well, this is what I got,
Speaker 2: you know, from my mom. But then like I looked
Speaker 2: at it and like if you looked at the times
Speaker 2: of the fork, the one on the side was more
Speaker 2: worn down and it was sharper, Like that was the
Speaker 2: fork that she used, you know when you scramble legs
Speaker 2: with a fork. That was her cooking fork. And so
Speaker 2: it wasn't just a fork from the dinner table that
Speaker 2: got used once a year. I was like, hey, like,
Speaker 2: this is your mom's cooking fork. For what it's worth.
Speaker 2: This is the most. This is the one that she
Speaker 2: used the most. This is the one that has been
Speaker 2: infused with your mouth more than anything. Right, And so
Speaker 2: like I think that that doesn't happen if somebody walks
Speaker 2: in the door and you say, how can I help you?
Speaker 2: So it does become secret, it does become a holy
Speaker 2: moment of sharing.
Speaker 1: So as John says, sometimes your parish is a military base,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's in your frame and print shop over
Speaker 1: a beer, looking at a fork or a tile from
Speaker 1: Mexico or whatever it is that people bring in wanting
Speaker 1: to cherish.
Speaker 2: I tried for the first six months of telling absolutely
Speaker 2: nobody that I was an episcopal priest. That did not
Speaker 2: work at all. Like, it did not last. Like I
Speaker 2: was like, nope, I'm a shop order, Like that is it.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing any of that stuff. And eventually who
Speaker 2: you are and what you're supposed to be he starts
Speaker 2: seeping out of you, right that there's something about you
Speaker 2: that you're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: While John loves the relationships he gets to build in
Speaker 1: his shop, he also appreciates that at the the end
Speaker 1: of the day, unlike that duty phone he had to
Speaker 1: carry around when he was in the Navy, that he
Speaker 1: gets to leave work at work.
Speaker 2: So the reason that I thought about having a shop
Speaker 2: was that I fell in love with the idea of
Speaker 2: looking at the clock and saying it's five o'clock, it's
Speaker 2: closing time, it's quitting time, and locking the door and
Speaker 2: walking away. I mean, my printing press is it's eleven
Speaker 2: hundred pounds of CAFs iron, Like you can't take a
Speaker 2: work on them, you know. And I don't have a
Speaker 2: glass cutter at my house. So you like, whatever's done
Speaker 2: is done. Whenever's not done has not been done. But
Speaker 2: at five o'clock you're locking the doors and whatever it is,
Speaker 2: like that diploma from Kent State is going to wait
Speaker 2: till tomorrow, like it's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: Sometimes John doesn't even wait till five o'clock to shut
Speaker 1: the doors, because, as he learned in Greece, there are
Speaker 1: times when life comes before business, like the time a
Speaker 1: friend of his showed up in swim trunks and said
Speaker 1: he was headed to the lake.
Speaker 2: It was the nicest day we had had in a while,
Speaker 2: but we had a lot of rien that year, and
Speaker 2: I just remember hearing you guys are swimming in the lake.
Speaker 2: Cool here I go, I put a note that it
Speaker 2: said God's swimming and you should be too. And even
Speaker 2: now I don't remember all those times that I worked
Speaker 2: super late or the times that I tried to crank
Speaker 2: out frames in time. But I do remember one day
Speaker 2: three years ago that I closed the shop and went swimming.
Speaker 1: Right After three years in operation, Piedmont Printon Frame is
Speaker 1: doing well, well enough that John has taken on a
Speaker 1: coworker and some interns to help him meet the now
Speaker 1: steady work orders.
Speaker 2: She went to school for graphic design. She has a
Speaker 2: better eye than I do, and she's very good at
Speaker 2: what she does, and so it's been great having her.
Speaker 1: And a few of those interns have been military folks,
Speaker 1: much like John once did, are navigating that tricky transition
Speaker 1: from service to civilian life.
Speaker 2: I'm on my fifth intern now and it's been an
Speaker 2: amazing thing where I know that in New Hampshire we
Speaker 2: have a lot of sometimes people in their twenties and
Speaker 2: thirties don't end up sticking around, and I really like
Speaker 2: that now through this program, I have two veterans now
Speaker 2: that we're not from here, that now live here in
Speaker 2: town and they go to Plymouth State, or they go
Speaker 2: to Lakes Region Community College, or one of them is
Speaker 2: going to want to work for the fire department and
Speaker 2: the other one works for the parks Department.
Speaker 1: And with the extra help around the shop, John now
Speaker 1: has more time to be part of the community, time
Speaker 1: to be the new chaplain at the Laconia Firehouse, time
Speaker 1: to volunteer with the local youth hockey team, or simply
Speaker 1: just time to stroll around his adopted hometown of Laconia
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire with a coffee cup in hand, saying
Speaker 1: hi to his neighbors.
Speaker 2: I think it's weird because they come from such a
Speaker 2: big city that like here it does. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: only a few thousand people in town, and yeah, like
Speaker 2: you cannot walk from one end of main Street to
Speaker 2: the next one without either being stopped or without finding
Speaker 2: a reason to stop and say hi to somebody.
Speaker 1: And John Bethel aka Johnny Piedmont wouldn't have it any
Speaker 1: other way.
Speaker 2: It's nice, like it's just it's nice, like you feel
Speaker 2: like you belong somewhere.
Speaker 1: The only thing he's got to be careful about is driving,
Speaker 1: because those New York City habits of his die hard.
Speaker 2: I have to remind myself that everyone knows my car
Speaker 2: and I can't flip out or drive on the shoulder
Speaker 2: because you're in my way. So as far as that goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: it does help me to be a better human being.
Speaker 1: For on the job, I'm Avery Thompson.