I used to object when people called me names because I am the laziest person in Maine, perhaps New England. There is that Karapetian guy in Roslindale who could give me a run (well, walk) for my money.

They call me loafer. Lounger. Slacker. Even bum. In the winter my snow is the deepest, never shoveled. In the summer, my lawn is the longest, never mowed. My leaf pile is several years old now. Cobb Manor dogma states “never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down and nap whenever humanly possible.”

But loafers everywhere now have a poet laureate in Tom Lutz, an English professor who has got off his duff long enough to pen “Doing Nothing: A history of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America,” (FSG, $25).

Our boy, Lutz has given a generation of slackers valuable information to avoid future chores.

The next time Blue Eyes insist that the time has come to weed the garden because the plants can no longer be found, I will quote Samuel Johnson (from the couch) “Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.”

When she points out that the house trim has not been painted in, say 23 years, I will quote Walt Whitman, who said in an 1840 newspaper interview “I have sometimes amused myself by picturing a nation of loafers. Only think of it! An entire nation of loafers. Adam was a loafer and all of the philosophers.”

Actually, Lutz is no idler himself. The “Doing Nothing” work is exhaustively researched, including info on such lazy luminaries as Englishman Chris Davis who founded whywork.org and Brit Sarah Nelson who founded the Leisure Party.

Slackers, we are not alone.

We have had our own publications. Johnson, when he could, put out Idler magazine. Scot Henry Mackenzie followed with The Lounger from 1785 to 1787, when he just got too tired.

We have our own movies. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Wayne’s World,” “Clerks,” and naturally “Slacker,” are considered loafers’ must-see, especially when someone else is going to the rental store, anyway.

We have our own heroes. Washington Irving, a noted slacker, had Rip Van Winkle sleeping for a glorious 20-year nap, long enough to miss the American Revolution. Now there is a slacker.

Jack Kerouac was the Pied Piper of slackdom, glamorizing the idle life in “On the Road.” Our boy Kerouac once described himself as “one of Earth’s biggest slothards” and admitted he chose writing because he could work only three hours a day.

We even have our own slacker president. Lutz said George Bush, the elder, was a classic overachiever, with stops as a successful oil executive, decorated combat pilot, U.S. representative, U.N. Ambassador, Ambassador to China, CIA director, vice president and finally, president.

But when George the younger went to Andover his teachers discovered he could not spell, Lutz reports. At Yale, one theory holds that W. was the model for Bluto, the hard-drinking, Jell-O-spewing DKE frat boy. Lutz notes that W. was a proud DKE member. At Harvard Business School, economics professor Yoshi Tsurumi told Lutz that W. was “lazy. He didn’t come to my class prepared. He did very badly.”

When his father was elected as vice president, W. got millions to invest (and lose) in the Texas oil game. By 1986, he was $3.1 million in debt. Lutz reports that slacker Bush sold out to Harken Energy and managed to keep enough money to but a share of the Texas Rangers. When he used his name to get taxpayers to build a new stadium, he sold his interest for $14.9 million, without lifting a finger … a slacker’s dream.

When he was elected governor of Texas, the workday ended before lunch. Presidents Clinton and Carter averaged less than three weeks a year away from the Oval office. Lutz says that Bush have averaged 19 weeks of vacation a year, clearing brush.

He’s our man.

Lutz started the slacker book to inspire his couch potato son to get out and look for work. But in his research, he whiffed the intoxicating perfume of sloth. “Right now, I’d rather stop and rest. Do nothing for awhile. I know that people say that doing nothing is the hardest thing in the world to do, But I feel that now, after the work of making this book, I’m ready for the challenge. I am ready to get off the treadmill to face the slow, beautiful emptiness and say, yes, this, too is good.”

Amen, brother.

Nap time.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.