Mel Barella

Cherry Pits to Blossoms Mel Barella

Cherry Pits to Blossoms is about a young boy who grew up in a small town, in Northern Colorado. The father was an alcoholic with a second-grade education who struggled to support his family. An enormously proud father who was a hard worker who struggled to support his family.

Despite his pride and his family ethics, he found it extremely hard to stay sober. At times he would stay sober for months until he would fall back into his addiction and would not work and would drink until sometimes, he would drink for weeks and sometimes months.

The boy's mother loved her family and worked hard to keep our father focused but she was not always successful. With nine children it was hard to work outside of the family. The family lived in a two-bedroom house had to cope with what they had available to them. There were not a lot of extras.

The town had many resources but was also very prejudiced against Hispanic families. When his father worked with addiction it was always hard to keep a job. Also, there were temptations, due to local bootleggers and friends who would constantly take him off track and he would fall back into alcohol. His father not able to find work would have to resort to migrate work. The children would have to check out of school and work in the fields to survive.

Coming from a Catholic background our mother helped us keep the faith. Our mother was always faithful to her husband and her children. As children, we went without and at times received support from the salvation army. Our sister fell into bad health and got spinal meningitis and kept mother busy attending to our sister's health.