When I say Hairdo, some people now think I am talking about an Echo Park Lake cross-breed duck -- or several -- who has (have) tufts of feathers standing on the backs of their heads. In this case, I am looking back to Saturday. It was the day of the annual Echo Park Christmas Parade. And it was the day I finally got to have my hair cut. For several years I went to Venice for cuts. Then I became averse to crossing town. And Lucas opened in the space where there had been a hand-bag-manufacture studio, which doubled occasionally as an art gallery.

Lucas is a storefront salon, one of several boutiques, a coffee house and a bodega at the base of the Del Mor apartment building – which Yvette Doss included in her Los Angeles Magazine service package -- Where to shop in Echo Park -- this month.

At 9 a.m., Lucas is humming, but very quietly. It faces east and dappled light filters its way over the hillside and through abundant greenery. There are copies of W and Paris Vogue to flip through. My dog is allowed to roam the salon. Through the windows you see the brown brick apartment building across the street and a steep hillside covered in trees, palms and evergreens, maybe some eucalyptus. You could be in a small town in the south of France, I imagine, though I have never been to the south of France. But for a few moments I am there.

About three years ago I had the good fortune to spend a month working in a storefront a few doors down. My regular day job started in the afternoons, and in the mornings I went to Fototeka gallery to study LAPD Archive photos for a book project. I was writing the captions. The street was peaceful – with the same lovely light I saw yesterday in the hair salon – in contrast to the book's photos which leaned heavily toward homicide – selected by an editor at Abrams. The photos sometimes spooked me, as I studied them trying to figure out what to say about the corpses and their representations. But being in the gallery in the morning was glorious, looking out on Echo Park Avenue, with its new stop sign near Magic Gas and its sleepy morning atmosphere.

"Gentrification" of the neighborhood was beginning to accelerate, with a squeal, at that moment, and who's to say that galleries didn't give it a significant boost? This Saturday morning it would be tempting to say this was a different place, a different time -- except that a few months ago patrons at Lucas left their chairs and haircuts to run towels to a young man who had been shot at the corner of Scott Avenue and Echo Park, a block away. Lucas's owner, Taylor Lucas, told me (a couple of months ago): "I didn't know what to do, but my clients ran out there with towels," trying to stem the bleeding. The youg man died (a week after he was shot) as did a friend of his, a teenaged girl and her baby in a freak, related "accident." (The girl, who was six months pregnant witnessed the shooting. She went into premature labor, and was taken to the hospital. At the hospital, she was given a drug to which she "reacted," and she and the baby died.)

That was several months ago.

This Saturday was the Echo Park Christmas Parade. I couldn't go, though I had hoped to. (Last year there was some drama with a runaway plastic reindeer, which crashed into some cars, after it failed to make a turn.) But I did hear reports: Council President Eric Garcetti was one of the grandmasters. Councilman Ed Reyes was a no-show, and his car was assigned to someone else. The Echo Park Historical Society participants waved to the crowd dressed as "Hippies" -- a nod to our recent honoring of Echo Park's Summer of Love, 1967, when there were love-ins and rock concerts in Elysian Park. Brite Spot proprietor Julio rode in a car with Mitchell Frank of the Echo.

"It's not exactly like military precision," said my unnamed source, who was present at the event. "I think the key is to have candy and throw it at the kids."

As for pit bulls, I received the following in an email from Kelly Mayfield:

Thank you for recognizing that not all pits are killers. I, too, have a big pit who was rescued from the street nearly 10 years ago. People he loves; dogs outside his pack, not so much. And I do respect that most people I will encounter on our walks are fearful or suspect of him. Karen’s right—owning a pit, no matter how wiggly and happy they are, means more responsibility. The rewards are great, though.