Today’s Impromptus is the expected smorgasbord, ranging from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump to Kylie Jenner to Oscar Gamble (the late baseball player, who was the first ballplayer I ever saw in the flesh).

I’d like to publish some mail, responding to previous columns. I had a note from a man on the subject of large families — and small families, and medium-size families, and no families. I was struck by his P.S.:

“My wife and I planned for three kids. There is a modern Jewish tradition of three: one to replace Mom, one to replace Dad, and one for the Holocaust. (How we did it was unplanned. Nobody plans for twins.)”

Here is a note about pronunciation, after I talked about “vanella” for “vanilla” and “melk” for “milk”: “Living in St. Louis, I have long been amazed at how so many people pronounce the name of the state across the river: ‘Ellenois.’” Yes, and instead of “Syracuse,” “Sare-acuse.” It’s one of those things.

Finally, a note about music, from a lady who has been reading us for a long time. This is a prizewinner:

I grew up in Massachusetts. When I was quite young, my parents started sending me to a summer camp near Pittsfield and Lenox. At some point, in Tanglewood’s early years, the camp began to take us to the festival once every summer. (Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony.) Because the place was quite new, we always had seats close up inside the Shed. …
One of my all-time favorite memories of Tanglewood is hearing Respighi’s Pines of Rome. It became my favorite piece for many years. I introduced it to one of my sons, who was both a musician and a bird-watcher as a young kid. (He eventually went to work for the Audubon Society!)
I took him to hear it at Philharmonic Hall in New York in about 1964, when he was six. I should say that he was already heavily into music: had books about the orchestra, etc.
Pines was scheduled for after intermission. My son asked to go forward to see where all the instruments were. He was pleased that they matched where they had been shown in his books.
But then he frowned. “Where’s the piano?” he asked. A woman in the front row leaned forward and said — rather patronizingly — “Little boy, there are no pianos in symphony orchestras.” I was annoyed at her tone, but he didn’t notice.
“I know,” he said innocently. “But they’re playing The Pines of Rome, and when the moon rises over the Janiculum, there’s an arpeggio on the piano.”
That is a kvell moment for any parent!
And just as he finished speaking, they rolled the piano onto the stage.