Los Baños, California: Fields and Free Time

By Cliff Potts
Bay Bay City, Leyte, Philippines — August 6, 2026

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

The Apartment Years

At the apartment complex, I became what my mother called a “garbage picker.” Not for food, but for objects. Discarded toys, broken gadgets, bits of hardware—anything that could be repurposed into something imagined.

Children are natural archaeologists. Other people’s trash became material.

One day, two boys and I found what appeared to be a World War II 500-pound aerial bomb. It was a surplus display piece—a dummy bomb—but adults did not know that at first glance. The police were called. They examined it and removed it.

For us, it had simply been another discovery.

The House at the Cul-de-Sac

After about a year, we moved to a furnished rental house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The street terminated at an irrigation ditch, and beyond that lay beet fields.

That was where the long afternoons began.

The days stretched. Heat, insects, dust, and bicycles. We rode constantly. I crashed often. Once, racing downhill, I discovered at speed that my brakes did not function. I launched into the irrigation ditch and declared the race won anyway.

Another time, riding between traffic and parked cars, I collided directly with a stationary vehicle. The injury required medical attention. I recovered.

Cub Scouts and Local Television

Cub Scouts filled much of the second year in Los Baños. Our den mother lived near us. We visited the Fresno Zoo on a field trip. We also appeared briefly on a local television program, The Jimmy Weldon Show, complete with Webster Webfoot. The host asked me on air whether I washed behind my ears.

It was not a career milestone.

Pinewood Derby

I built a Pinewood Derby car that year. In the process, I cut my finger deeply enough that stitches might have been appropriate. My father helped but did not take over the project.

Other cars were clearly engineered by competitive fathers. Mine was metallic blue, simple, and built primarily by me.

That distinction mattered.