I had a 5 ft hand blown glass bong in high school.
Had that thing since 7th grade, gorgeous.
It guided me thru my first experience with “Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti.”
If I could have married an inanimate object I would have married that beautiful glass bong.
After High School, I woke up one morning and decided to give everything up and go into the Air Force.
My nephew at the time was starting his bong phase.
I told him I wished to bestow it upon him. He drove 30 miles to come get it one slightly windy summer day.
When he came over I had it cleaned ...polished...sheened to crystal clear perfection,
That was when a sudden gust of wind came in thru the kitchen window.
It fell.
It shattered.
Had this modern miracle been around that Summer of 85, my baby might still be alive.
How would the bong industry make money once they saturated the market with unbreakable bongs?
I once tried showing off how unbreakable my phone was by throwing it on the floor, where it has never broken before. It broke.
Back in the day I was fortunate enough to know a father & son that were scientific glass blowers that used to make laboratory glassware for a major university science laboratory and had retired.
They would make things for close friends and I had several different kinds of of smokeware from globe tabletop pipe to a glass joint and an antifreeze tube, the prototype that I designed. It was about a foot long and had a 25mm inner tube with a 50mm outer tube with ring seals at each end and the bowl was just a pinch sized one. It was a carburetor type with finger sized vent opposite end of the mouthpiece. The space between the two tubes was filled with antifreeze so it could be stored in the freezer. It would cool off the smoke as it filled the inner tube. One of the coolest things was getting to watch it being made.
They both have passed away now but they made some really neat things.