I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so I don’t expect everybody to be as excited about a lard story as I am. Different viewpoints are not only what make the world go round, but also creates the disdain and disrespect that pretty much drives the modern American social engine. We can’t wait to get up in the morning and start hammering away and yammering at the fools down the street, across town, or on the other side of the country or world.

Me, I’m downright buttery over the recent story of the 87-year-old German man who kept a can of lard for 64 years. It seems this guy was a young man when he got the can of lard from the U.S. as part of an aid program to help rebuild Germany following World War II. He kept the can of lard all this time and recently turned it over to experts to be tested. The experts discovered the can of lard was still good after 64 years.

I don’t know why 64-year-old lard makes me so happy but it does. I think it’s got something to do with being a Southern male, 63 (I’m younger than the lard I’m extolling!), and having memories of lard being used in the preparation of not just food but great food. Fried chicken, pie crusts, biscuits and cakes and such. Naturally, that was before lard became synonymous with the angel of death; you know, the spread the Grim Reaper puts on his toast. For me, that a can of lard is still good after 64 years is a kind of in-your-face reality check for all those who have put lard on the back burner for the past 40 years.

I can just hear the healthy, wealthy and wise addressing the 64-year-old lard issue. “It’s all those horrid preservatives in the lawd that kept it that way for 64 years! Those preservatives are horrid and lawd is horrid!” These are the same people who are shot full of Botox; who have been liposuctioned from one end to the other; have been nipped and tucked to a fare thee well; and who have fat from their buttocks put into their thin, grim lips, which is probably why they pronounce lard lawd. They are the kings and queens of body “preservatives” but they frown upon the idea in lard and other foods.

Then you have the bureaucrats who’ll want to study the 64-year-old lard so they can come up with new rules and regulations about eating so they can ruin the whole eating experience for guys like me. “We’ve got to study this and find out more about when food should be thrown out and how long it can stay in the refrigerator, forgotten in that cold, back corner over the vegetable crisper where things go to get fuzzy, dried out and gross. We need to determine if fuzzy and gross is edible. We need more regulation and insight when it comes to eating!”

Me, I have no problem drawing a food rational here; not “ration,” but “rational.” Maxim: 64-year-old lard, still good in the can, is proof that lard can help a person live longer. Now, you may disagree with that and would never let a smattering of lard between your puffy lips that have been injected with who knows what. That’s fine. As I said, I need that disdain for you to keep me going. Let’s see your stupid Greek yogurt last 64 years in a can!

Yet, in the end we are all Americans and should be able to celebrate our national accomplishments. I guarantee that even the 87-year-old German has a respect for America when it comes to two words. “Lard technology.”

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.