Rick Padden
Rick Padden is a produced playwright, actor and former journalist living in Loveland, Colorado. He has acted on stages, on radio and in films throughout Northern Colorado since the turn of the century, and has written eight full-length plays, as well as several short scripts, fiction stories and a novel. Padden is a former Red Cross Public Affairs volunteer; currently volunteers at the Hearts and Horses Therapeutic Riding Center in Loveland and is retired. He and his wife, Rocky, live on acreage close to town, and particularly enjoy the elk, deer, coyotes, skunks, racoons, rabbits, owls, hawks and other critters that visit the property. Padden is also a rooky beekeeper.
Beets
Drama by Rick Padden
68 pages
7 m, 2 w
At the height of WWII with a frantic need to produce food, yet faced with a critical shortage of labor, American farmers were compelled to accept help in their fields from prisoners of war. While farmers’ sons fought men just like them in trenches and tanks in Europe, the presence of these POWs in rural America led to plenty of emotional conflict at home. Isabelle Hunt knows her husband Fred needs help with their beet crop, so he grudgingly allows German POWs from a camp nearby to work the family’s fields. Fred is furious over the food and privileges the POWs...