OTHER WORLD: At the William Lyon School,...

OTHER WORLD: At the William Lyon School, the hard part is not knowing how long you’ll be there. It’s the school for the Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s temporary residence for abused children. Current attendance is about 175. As a special art project, some teen-agers share how they wound up at Orangewood (E3). . . . From one youth, living in shelters, strangers’ homes, and finally the streets, with a brother and a sister: “This world is harder than it seems.”

GETTING DOWN: It’s that same old home-buying problem for young couples: How to come up with that down payment. Some bargains are available, but the average down payment here last quarter was just over 20% of the selling price, or $52,581, says Dataquick Information Systems, in a statewide survey. It could be worse. . . . In Marin County, the average down is $106,000. Beverly Hills? $370,556. Best bargain? Bakersfield, where the down payment averages just $10,000.

LUCKY COWBOY: Country music fans know singer Dwight Yoakam, of course. But Pete Anderson? He’s been Yoakam’s lead guitarist and record producer since Yoakam first hit the charts in 1986. Here’s how they hooked up: Yoakam, a newcomer, got an offer to play the Cowboy (now Cowboy Boogie) in Anaheim, but he didn’t have a band. He put together a quick crew, including Anderson. They’ve been a team ever since. Now Anderson, above, gets his turn in the spotlight: He’s just released his first solo album (F24).

RACING DIRTY: If you’ve never had the pleasure of military basic training camp, local Marines have an offer for you today. It’s the “Volkslauf Mud Run,” a 10K race at the Tustin Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station, where civilians test their stamina in a military obstacle course that includes a run through the muddy, quarter-mile “Rambo Death Ditch.” . . . About 3,000 are expected to run at noon, and they’re still taking sign-ups. Says race coordinator Capt. Boyd Harden: “People can count on leaving with a smile and a mouthful of mud.”