Free Out of My Mind by Andy Rooney Page A

ever has to be mowed.
    I’m for progress in most areas, but grass is one thing that doesn’t need to be improved. I don’t want my lawn to be genetically engineered. What makes Mr. Miracle-Gro himself think I’ll be any happier if I only have to mow the lawn twice a year? If he’s so smart, how come he leaves the “w” off “grow” in the name of his company? He thinks “Miracle-Gro” is clever?
    The fact is, Mr. Hagedorn, people like to mow their lawns. It’s like shoveling the snow off the sidewalk. There are just a few simple chores left that are easy and satisfying for the homeowner, and those are two of them. If someone has a sidewalk too big to shovel or a lawn too extensive to mow, they must be rich enough to pay someone to do it for them. Cutting the grass is not a job we hate. It’s easy, satisfying and it makes
the place look better. So leave our grass alone, Mr. Hagedorn. We like it the way it is. Nothing makes people feel prouder than mowing their lawn . . . unless it’s shoveling their sidewalk.
    There are women who enjoy ironing because they find ironing relaxing. For the few minutes it takes them to do it, they know exactly what they’re doing. That’s the way it is with a man shoveling a sidewalk or mowing a lawn.
    If Mr. Hagedorn wants to help homeowners, he ought to give some attention to the jobs we really hate. How about coming up with a machine that would clean out the attic, tidy up the basement, or make more room in the garage, Mr. Hagedorn? Could you redesign a lawnmower to do that? If you could, you’d be doing something for us. We’d all like to be able to get two cars in our two-car garages. Could you arrange that?
    As a matter of fact, you’ve got some work to do redesigning the lawnmower before you redesign grass. Forget about not mowing lawns. Figure out a place where we can put that damn lawnmower when we’re done with it. A lawnmower doesn’t fit anywhere. We use it seven times a year, and the rest of the time it’s just in the way. Give us a lawnmower that folds. The lawnmower takes up too much room that we need for other things like shovels, rakes, bicycles, gas cans. There isn’t a mower of lawns among us who likes the design.
    When I mow the lawn, I make a satisfying executive decision. The question is always whether to mow up and down, up and down, or across and across, across and across. Sometimes, I alternate the pattern of my mowing. I’ll just keep going around and around in a diminishing oblong pattern until the patch in the middle gets small enough so that the mower’s wheels span the strip of grass left and I can get it with one satisfying pass.
    I’ll bet Mr. Hagedorn thinks you ought to rake up the grass you’ve cut, too. I don’t rake. I take the position that the clippings have all the nutrients the grass took up out of the earth while it grew. It’s better to leave them and let them gradually leach back into the soil. I also think the clippings protect the roots of the grass from the hot sun.

    I’ve often raked together a little pile of grass I’ve cut and stared at it. So nice. It seems as if it ought to be good to eat. If horses and cows find grass so delicious, why is it that humans never eat it? Fried in a little butter with salt and pepper, maybe? If grass turned out to be a delicacy, Mr. Hagedorn would regret the day he developed a lawn that hardly grew at all.
    Next time I mow the lawn, I may cook a few cups and have the neighbors over for grass.

NOTES ON THE NEWS
    â€¢ A recent survey concluded that half of all working Americans don’t like their jobs. That’s a sad statistic but I wonder if it’s true. I’m always surprised at how interested people are in what seems like dull work to me. I don’t meet a lot of people who are unhappy with what they do. My father worked for a company that sold products to the papermaking