SEEING STARS

July 4, 1977. 

As usual, Betty, Michael, Jon and I are together, this time at a picnic on the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and his wife are attending.

I remember our Peace Corps Director was out on the field playing cricket.

It was a warm but windy day.

I went to get some food, and then walked to a canvas-canopied seating area where people were sitting on metal folding chairs. 

I saw a vacant chair and sat down. (A person told me that the U.S. ambassador's wife had just left from this chair). 

 I planned to give her seat back when she returned.

I was getting ready to eat when a sudden gust of wind blew down the tent covering, and one of the large metal poles fell down on my head.

I remember seeing stars...yes, it's true, and not only in the cartoons...and then both eyelids began closing...and darkness came...and I said to myself, "No, I don't want to die now...or pass out!" And then my eyelids started opening, and the darkness disappeared, the stars faded, and it was light again.

The U.S. Embassy nurse sewed some stitches on the back of my head where the tall pole had struck, and advised me to take it easy.

Betty, who had worked as a nurse at one time herself, was upset that the embassy nurse hadn't kept me for observation for at least a little while.

Betty asked in her raspy voice, "Do you have a headache? Do you feel nauseous?" 

To both questions I answered no, but Betty said that I should notify the medical office as soon as I had any of these symptoms.

Had the pole fallen below my skull just an inch lower, it might have killed me.