I have a strong memory of the bong I had in high school. It was about 16-18 inches high, cobalt blue, plastic, and it stunk horribly–and interminably–from my attempts to clean it with everyday soap and cleaning chemicals. (How little I knew then and how much I know now.)
I have absolutely no memory, at this moment, as to how 16-year-old Me got this particular and exact cobalt-blue, plastic bong, but, oh, do I ever remember it. Tucked under my bed, stinking up the room I shared with my sister, and pulled out again and again to smoke bottom-grade, blah-er-than-blah weed.
But my college bong … well, memories of that item had fallen to the bottom of some long-forgotten and possibly mislabeled storage bin in my mind. The image of it, the thought of it, or even mild interest in it simply had not graced my mind in decades.
Then one day, recently, I saw this image in my head: a mustard yellow-brown,brownish, greenish, purple-ish, opalescent-ish pegasus-shaped ceramic bong, and I said out loud to no one but myself, “My bong from college! My pegasus bong!”
And other pegasus-bong-related memories and pictures starting come back to me.
It was tacky then
This is not some story where I look back nostalgically on my college-days bong and now see, through the eyes of modern-styles and preferences, how dated, kitsch and tacky my ceramic bong was back then. Oh, no. I knew it then. And I really know it now.
But tacky as it was, it served at the center of many conversations and many gatherings during my brief college-dorm days
Where it went? Who I gave it to? Whether they appreciated it or just saw it as a free, albeit odd-ish, bong, these things I do not remember clearly.
But pegasus in my dorm room back at University of Maryland, College Park–that I now remember. My memory-fishing curiosity piqued, I decided to google a reasonable description of my bong and see what I could find. Into the search bar I typed “60s, 70s, bong, pegasus” and found this lovely listing, selling one just like I had.
The ad refers to the item as–I kid you not–a museum-quality sculpture, and goes on to say, “The person that wins this auction will have something that is one of a kind.” Though I’d add that unless they have what once was my pegasus bong, and unless all the other pegasus bongs in the world have been destroyed, this item’s rarity and uniqueness is not as they claim.
The sellers do get a little lighter in spirit and say, it is “a very ‘unique’ style of ‘vase.’ It has several holes in unusual places Mmmm.”
Mmmm, indeed.
Thanks for the memories!
Pegasus, FTW!
