Today, my Impromptus is headed “The circus begins, &c.” “Circus”? I mean the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. I have a few thoughts. But I also have some reader mail for you — beginning with this letter in response to my article “Freedom from Music”:

Mr. Jay,

I have been playing golf since 1959. It is my solitude. My curse is amplified music on the golf course. I just want to be out there to enjoy the “out there,” but now I can’t. I can depend upon some bore playing amplified music from his golf cart. Yesterday, as God is my witness, some [insert epithet of your choice] was blaring a news broadcast for all to hear.

Last year I e-mailed the USGA asking when they were going to take a principled stand against amplified music on the golf course. In reply, they referred me to the rule book, which specifically allows it so long as it does not disturb others.

Words fail me.

Dang.

A reader says,

Hi, Jay: My father-in-law loved the sound of bagpipes, and I always reminded him of the definition of a “Scottish gentleman”: someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn’t.

Brutal.

In an Impromptus last week, I shared a clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger, filling in a pothole in his neighborhood. It had been tripping up cars and bicycles, and no one from the city was doing anything about it, so Arnold got the job done himself. A reader writes,

Jay,

Twenty years ago some rough potholes appeared where the paved subdivision road turned to gravel. There were piles of loose gravel on the pavement. So my dad has one of my brothers and me hop in the pickup with a few shovels. In five minutes the three of us had cleared gravel off the pavement and filled the potholes.

Fast-forward to now. Each spring my kids and I sweep the leftover winter’s traction sand off the paved apron to our cul-de-sac, put it into a wheelbarrow, and fill potholes. Official workers just sweep it into the ditch otherwise. Sure, we could complain and they’d probably send a grader, but we’d rather get some exercise and let them save money to clear snow in the winter.

Maybe it’s a Germanic cultural thing. A large part of my childhood was spent amongst the descendants of German and Scandinavian immigrants in the northern great plains. But I was taught to stop and toss the sharp rock off the road, pick up the trash you find, and then complain about the other guy not doing his job.

It’s funny what resonates with a person.

One more? Kind of out of left field, but I like such comments:

I took my family on a beach trip last week, and I suggested to my son (who’s in fourth grade) that he buy a couple of Archie Digests for beach reading — always my favorite when I was his age. I’d usually buy two or three.

Jay, an Archie Double Digest now sells for $10 at the newsstand.

What kid can afford that? Who buys them now?

My thanks to one and all.