title: First Person, Last Straw: essays and other humorous emissions
author: Tom Waters
description: Tom Waters is the author of three other humor collections (Born Pissed, Zany Hijinx and If They Can't Take A Joke). His articles have appeared in Too Much Coffee Man magazine, Film Fax, The Buffalo News, ArtVoice, Night Life and Acid Logic. He's been published in at least three countries that he knows of and lives in Buffalo, NY. He''s currently eating a piece of cheese and working feverishly to complete his next book, If They Can''t Take a Joke. He''s also performed his articles as stand up comedy on stage, on the radio and on street corners in front of quizzical passers by. Most people have never heard from him or, if they have, would rather not associate with him.
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  # All in a Night
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### H.M. Tomlinson
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  It was whispered to me that the gaffer, who had just gone
  
  
  to sit over in that corner, was in his ninety-fifth year. He composed
  
  
  himself in a chair with decision and suppleness. That made me look
  
  
  again. I had seen the little old fellow enter, and he had come into
  
  
  the room down the three steps trippingly. His cheerful eye took us all
  
  
  in at once, as he nodded, and his skin was clear and pink. He began to
  
  
  attend to our talk, while sucking a clay pipe—the pipe was even an
  
  
  indecent antiquity—shyly, or slyly, but closely. The much younger men
  
  
  gave him little attention, but they were kind to granddad. Now and
  
  
  then they patronized him with a word or two, but direct sympathetic
  
  
  attention appeared to embarrass him. He might not have wanted our
  
  
  sympathy, but only his beer and a smoke.
  
  
    
  A hydroplane had just pa