Family Life 1967 — Part IV: Becoming a Chicagoan

By Cliff Potts
Bay Bay City, Leyte, Philippines — November 5, 2026

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

Above the IGA

The apartment above Long Food Market — the IGA — marked another adjustment.

Everything had to be carried up the stairs. When you move from a basement, gravity reverses its role. Furniture, boxes, mattresses — all of it went up.

Shana adapted quickly. The city noises did not bother her. She became my dog in practice, regardless of origin.

The arrangement of the apartment was modest but functional. It felt less exposed than the basement. There were no street-level windows inviting spectators.

It was not permanence, but it was improvement.

The Pattern

By the end of 1967, several lessons had accumulated.

You could be introduced as something you were not, and the label would stick.
You could lose possessions without warning.
You could be the default suspect.
You could move repeatedly and still be expected to adjust without complaint.

Chicago did not soften those lessons.

It presented them plainly.

Endurance

Chicago does not adopt you ceremonially.

It measures you.

It watches how you respond — to noise, to pressure, to embarrassment, to confrontation.

At some point, the resistance eases.

You are no longer the Californian.
No longer the Peruvian kid.
No longer the renter passing through.

You are simply there.

By the end of 1967 — after Helen and Gar, after Argyle, after the move above the IGA — I was no longer in transition.

I was in Chicago.