One of the last pictures taken of my brother Allen and my Dad together. Allen was my first sibling and major playmate.

  I was born in 1959, the same year that the first Barbie dolls stocked store shelves. The doll revolutionized the doll industry, and I revolutionized my parents’ life style because I was their first-born child. Dad called me his “Darling Daughter Donna”.  I had a lot to teach them that first year and they were so confident with their success with me that late the following year Allen was born. I don’t remember Allen’s birth. My first memory was of me in my walker and strolling up to the television set and seeing Lassie on the screen. I remember touching my hand on the screen and feeling the static of the television on my hand. This memory had to be from when we lived at my grandfather’s…