Sonya Baker (SB) and Michael Fazio (MF)
MF: My name is Michael Fazio and I’m here with my lifelong partner and dearest friend, Sonya Baker.
SB: I’m Sonya Baker and I’m here with my husband.
MF: Do you remember where we first met?
SB: Yes, of course I remember where we first met. The Thruway is where we met.
MF: I was a toll collector for about 17 years.
SB: I would drive the Thruway pretty regularly. And I saw you one day. And you were very friendly and desperately cute. [laughter] And um we would chat every now and then…
…I came through one day and you were counting money and I said how’re you doing? And then you looked up and said, Where you been? And I said, I’ve been here…where’ve you been? And you said, you must have been going through the wrong lane.
And you said “well I’ll put a cone in my lane, it’ll be like keeping a candle in the window for you. So I started making excuses to take the Thruway and started looking for the orange pylons and almost wrecked on several occasions I’m sure trying to cross several lanes and I went through one day and said, what do I get if you forget to put the cone out?
And you said, you name it…and I said, will you take me to dinner? and gave you my phone number…drove through and thought I was a total ding a ling for giving the Thruway guy my phone number. But any friend who has ever seen us together never wondered they always said oh yea of course, Sonya and Mike…what they have together is obvious.
MF: I agree.
SB: I always said since I never thought I was getting married I certainly was only gonna do it once and so if you hate me that’s too bad. Tough it out. Cuz i’m it for you and you’re it for me.
MF: I don’t hate you Sonia Baker, I love you.
SB: There is nobody I would rather travel through life with other than you…and I hope the same is true for you.
MF: It is true.
SB: I love you, honey.
MF: I love you too, baby.
