Darby Hinton

            On Saturday after midnight I lint-rolled the curtains between the bedroom and the living room, the top of my bed and the pillow and picked up a few of bedbugs from the curtains. The camera tripod that was holding up one end of the bedroom curtain rod fell off the shelf. I propped the rod back up with another tripod and secured the leg with carpet tape. I shook out my sheet and comforter on the deck. I went to bed at 1:30 and slept until 3:30 when I got up to pee, then slept until the 5:00 alarm. After yoga there were a couple of bedbugs stuck to the carpet tape on my mattress and a few on the walls and on the baseboards around my bed. 

            I memorized the sixth verse of “C’est ici (It’s Right Here) by Boris Vian. There is only one verse left to learn. 

            I searched online for the chords to “Yes Man” by Serge Gainsbourg even though I knew no one would have posted them. It’s a habit. I worked them out for the intro and the first note of the first line. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since October 10. 

            I got a text from my upstairs neighbour David claiming that he talked to all the other tenants and they say they don’t have bedbugs. He also claims that he no longer has bedbugs even though he was complaining about them just a few days ago. I told him I’m happy for him if he doesn’t have bedbugs but it may be just the space between the bedbugs’ hatching cycles. He’s suggested that I have bedbugs because I don’t clean my room even though he’s never seen my bedroom. This is not a housekeeping problem. The bedbugs are inside the walls. This has gotten out of hand because the landlord is extremely negligent about hiring pest control. It’s now been 2 and a half years since the last treatment.

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where there were some firm grapes for a change though not cheap. I got five bags of red grapes, three packs of blueberries, some bananas, two packs of New Zealand grass fed beef, ground in Canada, a jug of orange juice, a jug of lemonade, two containers of skyr, a bag of potato wedges, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips. 

            I weighed 90.55 kilos at 14:40. That’s the kindest I’ve been to the scale in the early afternoon since September 25. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade.

            I took a siesta at 15:15 and slept until 17:00. It was too late to take a bike ride. 

            I weighed 90.65 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:14. 

            I digitized a cassette tape of Steve Lowe and I polishing up our performance of my songs “Angeline” and “Calendar Girl”. One can hear my then 3 or 4 year old daughter Astrid commenting that she liked the first take of “Angeline”. The next cassette I digitize will be of one of my interviews on CIUT radio.

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedges, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching episode 8 of Daniel Boone. 

            Yad is on the way to Boonesborough with some furs to sell when he is stopped by Simon Girty and his three sons. They string Yad up by his feet and make off with the furs. Boone comes along and frees him then they head for Boonesborough to stop the Girtys. 

            Simon and his boys are just about to steal all the furs from the market when Boone and Yad arrive and start fighting. The Girtys are tossed in the river. 

            Boone and Yad are heading out by canoe to Salem to sell the furs. Daniel convinces his wife Rebecca to let him take their son Israel along so he can learn some things that aren’t in schoolbooks. She’s worried about her child’s safety but gives in. After they leave she says to herself there’s no harm in being sure. 

            That night when Boone, Yad, and Israel make camp, the Girty’s arrive with rifles they’ve stolen from the Cherokee. Boone shouts for Israel to run and so he heads west with the north star at his right hand like his father taught him. When he’s exhausted he is found by Mingo who was sent by Israel’s mother to make sure everyone would be safe. Mingo and Israel go back to the camp where they find Boone and Yad staked to the ground. Their canoe has been sabotaged with a big hole but Boone patches it with birch bark and they take to the river to catch up with the Girtys who are following the longer trail. The canoe has to shoot the rapids but they make it. 

            They come ashore near the Girtys’ camp but they know that they only have one rifle to the Girtys’ four. They are near a Cherokee graveyard and Boone gets an idea to scare the Girtys and throw them off their guard. They rob the grave of a Cherokee who was buried with his war paint. Mingo is done up to look like a Cherokee ghost and scares some of the brothers while the others make spooky noises. One of the brothers on guard is knocked out. Finally they are disarmed and sent away. 

            Israel was played by Darby Hinton, who made his debut as a baby on Playhouse 90. His father died when he was 14 months old. He made his film debut at the age of 4 in Hero’s Island. When he was 6 years old his mother dropped him off to audition for The Sound of Music and then went to park the car. He was mistakenly standing in line to audion for the role of Israel in the Daniel Boone series and he got the part. He co-starred on Daniel Boone for six years. He then went to high school at the American School in Switzerland. He went to college on World Campus Afloat and went around the world three times. He then studied and performed with The Groundlings. He played Ian Griffith on Days of Our Lives. He co-starred in Goodbye Franklin High, He starred in Malibu Express. He’s been starring in The Manor at Theatre 40s in Beverly Hills for the last several years. He is a “Master Trainer” for Tony Robbins. He wrote Growing Up Israel.