These days whenever someone mentions fast cars in movies virtually everyone instantly thinks of Fast and Furious. If you’re my age you may instead remember the car chase to end all car chases in Bullet with Steve McQueen. For true aficionados this was indeed the quintessential pioneer of that genre. Set in San Francisco the climactic scene lasts a full ten minutes while Steve McQueen drives a muscle car through the steep and winding streets. It was innovative for the times back in the nineteen sixties and it still holds its appeal even with the somewhat dated music and the iconic dress of that era. I remember seeing it in one of the downtown theaters when Mike and I were still dating. If memory serves me we saw it with one of his buddies from St. Thomas High School. On the big screen it was almost as good as IMAX.   

Watching the movie again this past weekend was so interesting. So much seemed antiquated compared to the advances that we have made but that muscle car would still fit right in. I remember that one of my daughter’s boyfriend got to drive his dad’s classic car every once in a great while. It was a honey much like the car in the movie. I never thought to ask but I would guess that the man who owned it may have contemplated the purchase after seeing Bullet. I know that Mike’s friend eventually owned a very similar automobile. Talk about power! Gasoline was cheap and nobody was particularly worried about saving the planet back then. Almost everyone owned gas guzzlers with big V8 engines. When Mike and I purchased our first auto, a Pinto, we were actually trendsetters, part of a new breed of people who saw less as more. Still, I so loved seeing Steve McQueen racing down the streets in that amazing car.

The movie itself was far more modern than I remember it being. In a hospital scene the head surgeon is African American. Back in the sixties that was no doubt highly unusual. I guess it said a great deal about how Mike and I were raised because I honestly didn’t even notice it way back then. I love that the story centers around phone booths. Most kids today have little idea what one of those is. With cell phones so prevalent those booths have little use and I have heard tales of people today who forgot their cell phones at home and had to search hopelessly for a way to call someone for help. 

Robert Duvall is a minor character in the film and he is so young that I didn’t even recognize him at first glance. Now he’s an old man who looks every bit his age. Unfortunately so do so many of the people in my age group including me. I always laugh at my image in the mirror because a part of me still sees a young woman whenever I see my reflection. It is mostly when I see photographs of myself that I have to admit that I am truly old enough to be a grandmother. 

I sometimes wonder where the time goes. Steve McQueen is long dead. He was struck with lung cancer in a time when smoking was still considered to be cool. Virtually every person that I knew had tried one of those cancer sticks at one time or another. My mother gave me one of hers when I was about seventeen because she wanted my first puff to be at home. I hated the experience instantly and never picked up a cigarette again. Eventually my mother quit as well but she still developed lung cancer and died from its effects. Quite honestly I don’t know why cigarettes are still being sold. I understand that smoking is an addiction that is hard to beat but there is just too much data proving that they are so bad for anyone’s health. 

Mike smoked for much of our marriage. In fact, when he attended St. Thomas High School they had the infamous “green slab” where both students and teachers would gather to take a puff between classes and at lunch time. That’s when so many of the guys picked up the habit. It was difficult for Mike to beat his cravings but he eventually did. I never realized how smoky our home had smelled until he was no longer bringing those things inside and I was able to clean the walls and the floors. I love that I have a new home that has never had smoking inside its walls. 

We traveled to Austria in two thousand five and I almost gagged in a coffee shop in Salsburg. I was shocked to see so many people lighting up and even more so because it was happening inside a cafe. Mike had been away from his habit for some time by then and even he couldn’t take the stench and the haze of smoke. We had to leave before we had finished our coffee and pastries. It’s amazing how we have changed so much with regard to smoking, guzzling gas, and other things that we simply saw as the normal way of life back in the day.

In the movie one of the characters dies in a hospital. My thought was that it was a miracle that anyone was saved in those ancient looking places. The equipment looked downright primitive and I suppose that in some ways it actually was compared to what we have available to us today. When I think of all of the advances in medicine that were not even dreamed of back then it almost boggles the mind.

I love watching old movies but honestly I had never really thought of Bullet as being classic until I watched it again. Surely it can’t be possible that so much time has passed since I sat in a luxurious theater in downtown Houston thrilling to the twists and turns of the plot. I wasn’t even married to Mike yet but I knew that I wanted to be and I dreamed of a time when he might ask me to be his bride. We were just two kids who had little idea how amazing our lives would ultimately be. We could not have imagined our beautiful daughters or our seven incredible grandchildren. We had no idea that we would meet such interesting people along the way and enjoy our work so much. Who knew that we would one day own multiple computers and devices that allow us not only to call from anywhere that we travel but also the read the news and communicate instantly with the world? I don’t think that we would have genuinely believed that any of that was possible. It was just too much like something from the mind of a Jules Verne.

I was so sad when Steve McQueen died. He was such a gorgeous man with those piercing blue eyes and rugged good looks. Now that I have grown old I am somewhat relieved that I never had to see him become old and grey. It’s much nicer to think of him as eternally young, driving a hot car, and melting the hearts of women with only a stare. It’s inevitable that we all one day look at the calendar and realize that the passage of time has been so swift that we hardly noticed it. I love progress and the idea of constantly moving ahead but I also like to reminisce. As I remember the past I have a greater appreciation for the person that I have become and for the wondrousness of the present. I also momentarily lose myself in memories that make me young again and that feels so good!