We sit in classrooms listening to another boring lecture. Or we take the kids to school on the way to work. Or climb in the pick-up truck for another day at the construction site. We stay busy or, what’s much harder, try to look busy. We go on about our business or tend to everybody else’s, whatever’s our pleasure in a free country.

We seldom look down at the underpinnings on which our lives rest. Or notice who maintains them. We remember the cops and firefighters and EMTs when we need them – and when we need them, we need them badly – but otherwise, we’ve got things to do, or thin...