Riding in the backseat of a long, black Chevy Caprice Classic in 1983, I heard an unforgettable melody. A woman’s light and airy soprano harmonized with a man’s velvety baritone. Sail away with me To another world And we rely on each other, ah-ah From one lover to another, ah-ah To my 9-year-old ears, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers' iconic duet, "Islands in the Stream," was the sweetest, most enchanting thing I’d ever heard. I grew up in conservative Muslim home, in a conservative, heavily white Christian suburb of Houston, Texas, and Dolly looked unlike any other woman I had ever seen in my young life. She seemed to be playing a character, with her big blond wigs, rhinestone costumes and surgically enhanced breasts, while remaining completely genuine and authentic. Over the years, I learned that at her core, underneath the mega-talent, brilliant business sense and glitter, was an unmatched kind and generous heart. She was born into a poor, rural family. Her sharecropper father, who could not read or write, paid the doctor a bag of cornmeal for her delivery. Her mother, married at 15, ha