Boots McKenzie = Hopalong Cassidy

This is what they call narrative fiction based on the retirement years of television actor William Boyd (AKA Hopalong Cassidy) to the desert town of Palm Desert. My family lived in Palm Desert from the early 60s and remembered him in town and his various antics in his later years. They even went some parties with him. They enjoyed telling me about the famous western actor in town.

When I moved to Palm Desert in 2012, I joined the Palm Desert Historical Society and went learned where his black and white house was located in town and went by it and took photos. Every week I hiked the Hopalong Cassidy Trail above the Target in Palm Desert. I ended up writing an article on Hopalong Cassidy called “The Black Knight.” Boots McKenzie is a fictional version of Hopalong Cassidy in “The Black Knight.”

Read the short story “Boots McKenzie,” told by an by old friend of the famous actor of his who sets up a new movie deal for him and gets him together with a woman he has loved for many years. It is somewhat a male Cinderella story told in the desert rather then the fairtale setting.

Boots – DS

Early Morning Along the Hopalong Cassidy Trail Above Palm Desert