HELLO ALOE & LAUGHING SARAH

Herb of the Day, Aloe Vera, gets a whole column today, recognizing its importance in the repertory of healing herbs. It will heal just by gazing at it, I sometimes feel, with that life-giving viriditas . I have seen it dry up and begin healing diaper rash almost as soon as the juice was applied--Wooo! Use clear juice only for this, since the sort of orangy color sap which comes from cutting leaf too close to stem may burn baby's skin.

Aloe has a great sense of humor. Stroke the nice turgid leaves between your fingers and feel the bumpy, benign prickles pass through. They go "Isaac, Isaac, Isaac" meaning "he laughs." And the image that comes to my mind is a happy baby. (See the story in Genesis 17 and 21 of Sarah laughing at God's "joke" that she would bear a son at age 90.) Thanks to friend Sara (no 'h') for inspiring this tack on the emotional value of the herb.

I once traded in live aloe v. when I lived in Santa Cruz. They came by truck from Arizona to a local herb broker, FMALI, run by friends Ben and Lou, now famous for Good Earth Teas. I would pot them in my garage using cans from the dining halls at UCSC and good ole Watsonville loam I cadged wherever I could. After a few weeks of settling in, I sold them wholesale and retail wherever I could peddle them, me in my '67 VW "Herbie" bus. I gotta say they sold themselves. Later a local production potter made cool little pots for the baby aloes and they sold well too.

Got a story about aloe vera? Write it to "comments". Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and mothers-to0-be (yay, Ro-Ro).