Trump in Latrobe! Aunt Milley goes nuts!

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This is one of those days I’m regretful I vowed to always let readers know where I stand on the issues. Or in my case where I slouch, lean or nap.

Well, President Trump is coming to Latrobe to speak tonight and I’m wishing I didn’t feel compelled to opine. Nothing good can come from it — and in the case of me opining and Trump speaking that’s a two-fer.

The notion will anger my Trump-despising friends. They think I’m too soft on him and should feel an obligation to bash Trump and all his voting enablers, both native and Russian.

And — there — mild jabs like that will infuriate my Trump-loving friends, many of whom are surprisingly thin-skinned when it comes to defending someone whose skin is so abundant Hannibal Lechter would describe him as “roomy.”

Really, if I thought I could change even one mind, I’d do it. It would be a monumental accomplishment.

I’d start by rescuing Aunt Millie (not her real name). We’ll get back to her.

But, as I’ve said many times, it’s impossible to change the minds of the mindless — and I include myself in the description.

My mind is made-up. So is yours, I’m sure. We’ve reached a point in America where the only time a mind changes is when it undergoes ballistic intervention. And the lethal frequency of these atrocities is sadly trending up.

If violence isn’t the answer then how come we’re always asking the question?

And now, again, it’s all about race. The pity is when it comes down to blacks and whites the issues are never black and white.

Many of my neighbors are wondering if he’ll stop at the wildly popular Trump House, not even 1/2 mile from my Tin Lizzy HQ,

He may, but that’s not going to win him any votes. He’s got that crowd locked up — and I mean that metaphorically. It’s the border-crossing children he has locked up.

That’s why I’d advise him to stop for a photo op at the downtown Fred Rogers statue. Here’s a good Fred quote: “The three keys to ultimate success are: Be kind. Be kind. And be kind.”

It’s very uplifting and stands in stark contrast to the most famous Trump quote which involves grabbing women by their genitalia, which I guess could be called up-skirt-lifting.

The Fred park is special. Many people go there for solace, for soul-searching.

It’d be breaking news if Trump found he has one.

Now, that was another cheap shot. Sorry. Just playing to the base.

I wonder if it would change any minds if you could see on video the bronze Fred statue actually begin to scowl at Trump’s approach.

That’s the kind of joke I told over dinner last night as we coincidentally sat down  with four-Trump-loving friends.

Surprised? Yes, some of our very best friends are Trump supporters, which I guess is the pandering equivalent to a Trump fan declaring some of their best friends are black (lives matter).

These days, I enjoy the company of most anyone who doesn’t traffic in the crazy conspiracy theories.

Sadly, that means I’m done with Aunt Milley. I don’t know why I’m fictionalizing her into an aunt when she’s a true granny and that’s plenty folksy. She used to dote on our kids, bring them candy and volunteer at the church.

Well, we miss her.

Did I mention poison politics have turned her into a racist bitch?

Her Facebook feed is all Q anon, wacko theories on blood-sipping pedophiles (DYK even Tom Hanks is one of those?)  And then there are the ugly racist musings about the Obamas.

It’s no longer enough to merely disagree on policy. You now must ascribe phantasmagorical villainy to your opponent.

We lose so much when we weaponize our passions.

It’s becoming common to speculate whether or not we’re on the brink of a new Civil War.

Fat chance, I say.

In America today, civility was the first casualty.

Welcome to The Incivil War.

Related …

The Giant Trump that ate Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood

Trump-lovin’ Tin Lizzy in the news again

Trump vs. Fiorina: Who’s our ugliest president?

Someone needs to yank Trump’s rug off

Trump’s no jackass; he’s under-qualified

Who’ll take on Trump and what Cher has to do with it

Nothing about fill-ups is a gas, gas, gas

If you’re anything like me, at some point in the next three or four days you will spend about 10 minutes standing around outside as forlorn as a smoker without a butt.

Of course, you have a butt and you’ll be freezing it off.

You’ll be pumping gas, one of mankind’s most dreary and depressing tasks.

I’m surprised there aren’t more complaints about how time-consuming and inefficient it is.

Let’s set aside for now the arguments about the wastefulness of fossil fuels and their contributions to global warming and other earth-killing pollutants. For as Archie Bunker says, “Ah, what’s the point of fixing something I’m already used to.”

I’m talking about the tedious process of filling our tanks.

My ’07 Saturn Vue gets about 21 mpg; 280 miles on a 13-gallon tank. That’s about $40 a week.

Not bad.

It’s not fuel consumption that agitates. It’s time.

Why hasn’t someone designed a car with a hot-tub sized fuel tank that will allow me to fill up just once every six months?

At current prices, one fill up would cost $840, which I’d gladly pay because it would free up at least 3.5 hours of time.

An unattended fill-up would take long enough to allow you to shop, get a hair cut or play nine holes of golf. Or you could go to the bar and get gassed while your car did.

Pumping gas is the biggest black hole of time with which modern man must deal, other than self-inflicted wounds like facebook, reading blogs or, egads, composing them.

Pumping gas wouldn’t be bad if we actually pumped gas.

But no one pumps gas. We just stand around out there in the cold. We open the lid, unscrew the cap, remove the nozzle from its holster and give the grimy trigger a squeeze.

Then we’re all bound to just stand there for the next five or six minutes hunched or erect while the tank slowly fills.

I’d appreciate it if an innovative chain or station added a feature that allowed us to aerobically pump the gas from the ground into our vehicles.

Think of the benefits. It would be like a super-charged work-out on one of those old hand-powered rail cars.

You could probably burn off as much as 1,000 calories per fill-up, which would let you feel less guilty about purchasing and consuming some of the nutritionally desolate crap they sell inside the convenience marts where we all get gas.

When I say it takes five minutes to pump gas, that’s conservative.

If, like me, you live in a small town where everyone goes to the same two or three places to get gas, you’re hit with a conversational time tax.

I like everyone I’ve ever met, but some of them I like better from afar.

Those are the ones I invariably run into when paying for gas.

If it’s someone I see on the bar circuit, we can dispense with the greeting with friendly gorilla-like grunts, my preferred form of communication.

But it could be anyone. It could be someone from church, my kid’s teacher, my insurance guy or one of the friendly old blue hairs I see up the grocery store.

Now, truth be told, I’m not high up on the list of people they want to run into either. In winter, I rarely bother to shave, over-apply deodorant or give the appearance I’m going someplace that doesn’t stink.

But this is Mister Rogers Neighborhood. The late Fred Rogers was born here and modeled his iconic show after Latrobe. We have a civic duty to be neighborly -- even if it kills us.

So we could stand there next to the stale chips for as long as 10 minutes exchanging awkward pleasantries that never trouble people residing in regions renown for rudeness.

Yes, of course, I hope for a green breakthrough that will allow our cars to charge in sunshine or while we slept.

But barring that, I can only hope one day some genius invents a petrol pill we can pop in the tank that will expand to capacity with a five-second splash of gasoline.

Such an innovation would leave me, er, thrilled? Jazzed?

Geez, what’s the word I’m looking for?

Pumped?