My Impromptus column today has some grave subjects: Russia, Haiti, us. But there is also leavening, in the form of books, music, and comedy. Give it a go, here.

Let’s have some mail. On Monday, I had a note on Lincoln (whose memorial in Washington I had just stopped in at). I wrote,

I love visiting this man. I feel, somehow, that we are friends, though I know him and he doesn’t know me. I bet that millions of others feel the same.

A reader writes,

I know exactly the feeling you are describing . . . Though my experience was more Jefferson. My daughter and I would spend hours sitting in a tree at Monticello, as if we lived there and were house guests of Jefferson and discussing politics and philosophy. It was extraordinary!

In that same column, I wrote,

. . . I passed an ice-cream truck . . . that played the first few bars of “The Entertainer” over and over again. It is a wonderful piece. But I don’t see how the driver, or operator, keeps from killing himself.

A reader writes,

While stationed in Taiwan in 1964–66 (as a translator of Chinese), I married a Taiwanese Chinese woman who had two sons, six and eight years old. I had reenlisted and we headed for Ft. Hood, Texas (now Ft. Cavazos). After a year there, we moved on to the Presidio of Monterey, Calif., where I spent a year learning Japanese.

During our time in Ft. Hood and the Presidio of Monterey, the kids became very fond of ice-cream trucks — for some reason. At both locations, the trucks blasted out a recording of the same old fiddle tune, “Turkey in the Straw,” and they would come running to me for some cash.

I graduated from my Japanese class and we made another move, this time to a U.S. Army base in Greater Tokyo.

My wife and stepsons stayed with my parents in Houston for a month or so while we waited for family housing to become available. We ended up living at the Grant Heights Family Housing Area (administered by the USAF).

One day soon after we had moved into our Grant Heights home, they heard their favorite fiddle tune and came to get money for ice cream. They were quite excited.

They were keenly disappointed to learn that the song was emanating not from an ice-cream truck but from a Japanese garbage truck making its rounds.

Total bummer.

Another note from Monday’s column:

Halleloo, I thought, when I saw this headline: “How Did Vanilla Become a Byword for Blandness?” (Article here.) Vanilla is one of the most marvelous flavors in all the world. That it is a synonym for blandness is nuts.

(My apologies to nuts.)

I once knew the owner of an ice-cream parlor. His favorite flavor was vanilla. But he also said that vanilla was the ultimate test of any parlor, or ice-cream–maker.

A reader writes,

Back when the Carpenters were popular (before Karen’s tragic death, and their critical reappraisal starting in the ’90s), singer-songwriter Paul Williams defended them from accusations that their music was “vanilla.” He responded, “But what an exquisite flavor vanilla is!”

Another reader writes,

My first real job was in high school at a Baskin-Robbins store in San Jose. (This was the mid-1970s.) Our most popular flavor, by far? Vanilla. Runner-up? French vanilla. Really, really delicious stuff. So why is “vanilla” used as a pejorative synonym for “bland”? And then there’s the doubling-down phrase “vanilla plaid,” to mean, I guess, really bland. But plaids are delightful. People who say such things know nothing about either vanilla or plaid.

In my column on Wednesday, I mentioned a refrigeration company called “License to Chill.” A reader says,

I was predicting you’d segue from the air-conditioning truck to one of Jimmy’s best albums, but no joy:

D’oh!

A reader from New Orleans writes,

Made me think of one of our local disposal companies whose slogan is “Our Business Stinks But It’s Picking Up.” Every time I see one of their trucks, I smile.

Inspired. Thank you, to one and all correspondents and readers.