Throughout the late 70's and early 80's living in a small town about 
4000, it was not at all uncommon to ride down any street in town and 
see cloth diapers and rubber pants hanging on clotheslines; and 
sometimes there would be more than one size diaper and different size 
rubber pants on the lines, indicating more than one child in diapers. 
This was the case in our yard. There were infant prefolds and small 
rubber pants, then toddler prefold and large rubber pants and flat 
diapers and toddler super rubber pants that were mine. I wet the bed 
until the age of 9, and because there were 5 kids in our house mom put 
me in nightly diapers and rubber pants to keep the daily laundry load 
down.

I also had 2 older sisters who did not wet the bed. My 2 older sisters 
did not make fun of my diapers and rubber pants as they were used to 
seeing me in them; and besides, they also knew that if they teased me 
too much about them they would wind up over mom's knee as she told them 
they could not tease me. Sometimes they would if nobody was near and I 
would hear things like "Richie's got diapers on!"

Sometimes when mom would say to me around 8:00 at night, "Okay, let�s 
go, it's time." I would follow mom down the hall to my room and get 
undressed while she got the diapers and rubber pants out, I would lie 
down on the bed and she would put baby powder and diapers on me, and 
then came the rubber pants. Once this was done and mom checked to see 
that my diapers were completely covered by the rubber pants I would put 
my PJ's on and go and watch TV or play. My older sisters seemed 
oblivious to the fact that I had been diapered. In the morning the 
diapers went into the pail with the younger ones� diapers and would be 
all washed and hung out to dry along with the rubber pants.

One day my aunt and girl cousin came to stay for a few days and we were 
out in the back yard and my cousin spotted my toddler super rubber 
pants hanging on the line and asked my oldest sister, "Are those for 
you?" My sister answered that they weren't and said, "They are 
Richie�s; he wets the bed." My cousin looked at me and said that the 
boy who lived next door to them wet the bed and he to had to wear 
diapers and rubber pants to bed, too. Also she told us that one of her 
girlfriends had a brother that had diapers and rubber pants on in bed.

That evening around 8:00 mom said, "Okay Richie, it's time." I followed 
her down the hall to my room and had my diapers and rubber pants and 
PJ's put on and went to watch TV until bed time. Mom and my aunt went 
out into the yard and my cousin said, "Richie, can I see your rubber 
pants?" I said no and went to sit down and watch TV. My oldest sister 
said, "Richie, pull down your PJs so we can see your rubber pants."

With that, she got up and walked behind me and quickly pulled down my 
PJ bottoms and I stood there with my PJs at my knees and the rubber 
pants exposed for all to see. The girls started to chant, "Richie wears 
rubber pants! Richie wears rubber pants! Richie wets his bed! Richie�s 
got diapers on! Richie wets his bed!" The girls told me not to tell my 
mom or they would tell all the kids in the neighborhood I was a 
bedwetter. That was the end of one of the nastier events during my 
years of wetting the bed, but after that my cousin would see me and I 
was thinking that all she could think of was the night she saw me in 
rubber pants.