[dropcap]J[/dropcap]une 2017 was supposed to be the month my 13-year-old son Gideon went to Washington, D.C. on a youth tour.

For reasons that had nothing to do with recent gunfire or the current occupant of the Oval Office (or the fact that “draining the swamp” might be too overpowering a concept for a lad who still cringes at parental suggestions about “emptying the cat litterbox” or “picking up that HazMat suit from your bedroom floor”), my wife and I decide...