Jon blew off the day of classes standing between him and Thanksgiving break 1985 and drove straight from State College to his buddy’s house in Montgomery County. As Jon suspected, his pal since grade school had a plan: They picked up a case of beer and went to what was then Beaver College.
Michele, a freshman and the party host, knew the guy she didn’t recognize had to be her friend Jeff’s friend, who went to Penn State. She was very glad she had told Jeff the more, the merrier.
“He’s cute!” she whispered to her roommate. In truth, Michele thought Jon practically sparkled. “Is he checking me out?”
“No,” her roommate said.
“I was checking her out,” remembers Jon. “Carefully, so I didn’t get caught.”
Eventually, Jon made his way across her dorm room. He sat on Michele’s bed and spun a pillow on his finger, like a Globetrotter of bed linens. “Oh my God, look at him!” thought Michele.
“Hello. I’m Jon Kuhl,” he said. “Can I check out your albums?”
Jon picked out The Big Chill soundtrack.
“He just put on my favorite album,” Michele said to her roommate. “Are you sure he’s not looking at me?”
Said the roommate: “He’s not looking at you.”
But again, Jon was.
“She’s extremely beautiful — her lips, her eyes, her smile, and her attitude,” said Jon, who is from Jenkintown. “She was so bubbly and fun.”
Michele, Jon, and others played Hacky Sack in the hallway, and the two talked as much as they could between kick saves. After the game, Michele’s dorm room was much less crowded. Jon again sat next to her.
“She asked me, ‘So what do you want to do now?’ ” he said. “I’m not stupid. I leaned in and kissed her.”
His friend Jeff left, but Jon stayed.
“We stayed up all night talking,” said Michele, who is from Bensalem.
An only child, she mostly listened as Jon — who talks a lot when he’s nervous — told her about growing up in a family of seven kids, his basketball career at Jenkintown High School, and his business studies.
“Something just hit me in the gut — I was lovesick,” said Jon. “She was a keeper and I didn’t want to blow it.”
Jon asked if he could write to her.
Michele had dated the same guy all through high school; she did not intend to commit to someone else this soon. But letters? “Sure,” she told him.
Jon’s more of a talker than a writer, he says, but he hoped his missives about the stupid thing some guy did at his fraternity and the time he tried to change a flat tire on a hill would keep their connection going. He sent her a mixtape of love songs. She sent him a recording of her goofing off with some friends.
“Then he came home in the summer, and again he walked across a room toward me, and I felt this little ache in my heart,” Michele said. They started dating then, and more seriously six months later, when Jon graduated, moved back home, and got his first job in sales for the linen industry. Michele graduated with a sociology degree in 1988 and tried several paths before landing well in hospitality.
The two broke up once, for about five months in 1991. Jon had met someone and wanted to be free to date again. Michele, devastated, began dating two people so she wouldn’t fall for either. She had just spoken to one and then the other on the phone where she was house-sitting when the phone rang a third time.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“Jon.”
“Jon who?”
“Jon Kuhl.”
“How did you get this number?”
“From your mother.”
Michele’s mother had been furious with Jon for hurting Michele — his mother wasn’t too pleased, either. But when Jon called the house saying he had made the biggest mistake of his life and needed to talk to Michele, she caved.
Michele, who is now 54, agreed to meet at a Jenkintown restaurant. She and Jon both felt too nauseated to eat the food they had ordered, but by the end of
the night, they were back together for good.
New Year’s Day 1992, at a fancy French restaurant in New Hope, Jon, who is now 57, slid a card across the table to Michele. “It’s been a lovely eight years. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?” he wrote. There was a picture of a ring, and a note that she should pick one out. “Sure, I’ll marry you,” she said.
They married 28 years ago this month at the Aldie Mansion in Doylestown. Rather than an engagement ring, they saved for a trip to England and Scotland. Michele wears Jon’s late mother’s ring.
A bit more than five years later, oldest daughter Jemma, now 22, was born. She is a senior at the University of Vermont. Daughter Melaina, 17, is a senior at Cheltenham High School.
The couple have always loved their community — the place they met and every place they’ve lived together, including the Wyncote home they’ve had since 2010, has been in Cheltenham Township. For four years, Michele co-owned Elcy’s Cafe in the Glenside train station. They have never appreciated the community more than now.
Currently, Jon works for Global Sourcing Solutions from the basement — usually with dog Kipper beside him. Starting last March, Jemma took her classes from the dining room, where she was usually joined by sister Melaina, home from Cheltenham High. Michele landed her current job with Jeffery Miller Catering — the company that catered their wedding — at the start of the pandemic. She currently works about 10 hours a week from the sunroom.
The family plays cards. They do puzzles from the paper. They walk their dog.
Melaina continues to study virtually from home.
Jemma recently returned to Vermont, but not before stocking her parents’ freezer with homemade meals and treats.
There are not many events for Michele to plan. And Jon — who put 13,000 miles on his car in 2019 — added just 1,000 in 2020.
The couple are spending more time at home than ever before.
“We are getting to know our neighbors a lot better,” said Jon. The six fire pits among the near neighbors have helped with that.
They are also spending more time together.
“We give each other both the space and the support we need,” said Jon.
Alone, he plays golf and she watches movies based on Jane Austen novels.
Together, they cook and count their blessings: continued employment, a house with enough space for everyone, and the ability to still make each other laugh after 36 years.
