Los Baños, California: Arrival — The Dam People

By Cliff Potts
Bay Bay City, Leyte, Philippines — July 23, 2026

This is a serialized installment from the autobiography of Cliff Potts.

Looking for a Place

Every town has its own beginning.

Los Baños began with us driving slowly through it, looking for a place to rent. It was not a city, just a Central Valley agricultural town—sugar beets, truck farms, irrigation lines, and dust. My father was working on the aqueduct system again, this time connected to dam construction.

Years later, my parents told me that locals referred to families like ours as the dam people. It was not said directly to me. I was eight. But there was a line, however subtle—town residents and temporary project families who would eventually move on.

The Pancake House

We drove past the Pancake House, marked by a large starburst neon sign that served as something of a town landmark. In those days, you did not schedule showings or fill out forms. You walked in, asked if something was available, paid the deposit, and moved in.

The first apartment we inspected was not acceptable. The couple next door were in the middle of a loud argument that carried through the walls. My mother returned to the rental office and declined it. We were reassigned to a ground-floor corner unit near the pool.

It was modest but comfortable.

A Temporary Beginning

We stayed in that apartment about a year, though the timeline blurs at this distance. Eventually we moved again—to a furnished rental house at the end of a cul-de-sac that terminated at an irrigation ditch across from a beet field.

Los Baños was quiet. Manageable. For a few years, it would be the setting for some of the most formative parts of my childhood.