PALMDALE PAIN: USA Today took a close...

PALMDALE PAIN: USA Today took a close look at Palmdale last week on its front page. But it wasn’t what the Chamber of Commerce had in mind. . . . Calling Palmdale “the foreclosure capital of California,” the newspaper said the number of homes that banks took back from mortgage holders rocketed from 37 in 1990 to a projected 858 this year. The newspaper reported that 25% of single-family homes and condos in the city were lost by owners in the past five years.

ROCKY FLIGHT: At least one Palmdale burgher greeted the story with skepticism. “It’s something that we have to check into,” said City Councilman Joe Davies. He noted that Palmdale was the second-fastest-growing city in the United States as aerospace boomed. In 1980, the population was 12,277. Today it’s 104,000. But in the meantime, defense contracts have dried up.

WONDERFUL LIFE: “You want to ask questions or you just want me to talk?” Hey, who’s going to stop her? Not Scott Harris, who relates the century-spanning life of Freeda Bogad in his column (B1). The tiny 100-year-old in the pink party dress, a veteran of trade-union battles and the women’s suffrage movement, celebrates her birthday with relatives and pals in Northridge today.

VALLEY BOY: William Wendt’s San Fernando Valley has no strip malls, crime or traffic. It doesn’t even have streets--just a few squiggly paths. Wendt has been dead for 50 years, but his oil painting of the Valley, circa 1919, lives on. The painting is on sale for $75,000 at William Karges Fine Art in Los Angeles.

FUN CLASSES: Experts expect the job market for recreation therapists to grow nearly 40% over the next decade. Educating folks who will teach disabled or injured patients to play is just part of the work done by the department of leisure studies and recreation at CSUN (B1). . . . Another role: Intervention for at-risk youths. “We go in there before the police,” said CSUN alumna Audrey Brown.