Imagine this.

It’s 1938. You’re a 5-year old girl and in first grade in a one-room school with grades one through five in five neat rows divided only by the size of their desks. You have been called by the teacher to recite at the front of the room. But suddenly, you have to pee. You have learned that when this happens you raise your hand with either one or two fingers pointed up. But this child freezes with fear of exposing her needs to the class, or all five classes, so she pees in her pants.

Next memory: the teacher tells her to rinse out her pants in the girls’ room and then hang them in front of the large…