This is the 14th post of a blog by Matt Porubsky called “satisfactual,” which will be updated whenever he damn well pleases, discussing odds and ends about Topeka history and culture, with a little opinion thrown in for good measure.

Sometimes we don’t realize what we have.

A proud assortment of supporters, organizers and dignitaries, foreign and local, gathered beneath a white tent today to honor Topeka’s newest point of pride, the “Lantern Light” sculpture by Master Ye Yushan. It has been the buzz of periodicals, television and the Internet. Heck, you can even read about it on our website. So all those facts about what Topeka has been honored with and the great people who made it possible I’ll leave to the pros because I know I would leave someone or something out. I’ll just tell you the scene: It was a dark and stormy night…just kidding. It was a dark and stormy day…

The ceremony started with a short-lived rain and a number of speeches beneath a tent some seventy yards away from the sculpture itself.  It seemed like half the attendants had cameras and were capturing every moment, from Mayor Bunten’s joke about renaming the sculpture, “Google,” to C.J. Wei, President of the Kansas City Chinese American Association, who provided an amusing anecdote about when he was twelve at the Beijing Hotel and had his first drink of Coca-Cola Classic and nearly vomited. The speeches were honorable and noted all those who should have been thanked. 13 News anchor Ralph Hipp even did a bang up job on pronouncing the Chinese dignitaries’ names. It was a proud international moment for Topeka.

Everyone was drawn to the  “Lantern Light” for the ribbon cutting and clapped at the moment of commencement. The sculpture sparkled with rainwater and the mingling continued. This was my first time to get a close-up look at the piece. The characters on the triangle base glowed brightly and the bending red steel shaped in angles and neat lines. It looked like an abstract Chinese paper lantern in straight lines glowing red from the mirrored reflection at its base.

The ceremony meandered toward Washburn’s Bradbury-Thompson Center for a luncheon. Being the sole representative of seveneightfive magazine, I was, as my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Boxberger put it when I was the only person at my table at school that day, “a lonely squirrel.” So I had to look for another lonely squirrel to sit with. Then I saw Shannon Reilly, Artistic Director for Topeka Civic Theater and Academy, sitting at a table alone in the back of the room, and I knew I had found what I was looking for. I asked if I could join him and Shannon said, “Sure. I wanted someone else to heckle with.” I had the best seat in the house.

Our conversation started with hot pickles and continued toward our daughters, who were/are obsessed with dressing like princesses and how to handle taking them into public in their attire. Brenda Zimmerman, a long-time performer at TCTA, soon joined us at our “lonely squirrel” table along with her mother. Brenda had played roles from Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz to the toothless hag in Sweeney Todd. That’s when the real entertainment started to present itself: great tales of backstage high-jinks and inside jokes, under-rehearsed performance successes and stand-ins. I asked Shannon, as a director, how many times he had to stand-in for performers. He quickly responded, “18 Times,” with a sense of pride lined with the stress of each one of those performances. He laughed with remembrance. When you think about it, though, he knew every part of every one of those plays or musicals. Every movement of every character and every line they spoke as they moved. He has rewritten scripts to suit the audience. He has made impromptu performances so the show could go on for the audiences. He once stopped a show mid-scene, when the home of TCTA was in North Topeka next to the levees, when my grandfather Charles Porubsky passed out from health reasons, and continued with the show once he had recovered and felt good enough to watch the rest of the performance. Brenda’s mother, across the table from us, commented on how chilly the room was and Shannon gave her his jacket to wear.

Shannon shared with me that TCTA is approaching its 75th anniversary. They are putting together a story journal and DVD of interviews in commemoration. He did tell me that things aren’t always easy. Every year he and his board read hundreds of scripts of comedies, dramas and musicals to choose what would best fit TCTA. Out of those hundreds come about a dozen, and still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the rights to perform, not to mention set design and everything else that comes with creating a professional production. The economy isn’t helping them much either. TCTA will soon be producing “Peter Pan” and Shannon stated, “I have less money to build the show this year than I had to do it the first time 11 years ago.” That’s a sad fact when taking into account what the theater has given and is giving our community.

That was the moment I realized TCTA was a lantern, too, a huge light that has been active in our community and making Topeka great for decades. I am not trying to overshadow the privilege we have in being a home to one of four of these priceless Chinese sculptures at all. I find it to be quite meaningful, especially the side of the base of the sculpture that has the signatures of average Chinese citizens who were born in 1979, the year China and the USA began peaceful diplomatic relations. It is a symbol of the common person. TCTA has been entertaining the common Topekan for seventy-five years. I guess what I am really trying to get at is that you should go see the “Lantern Light” on the Washburn campus and realize its value. But don’t forget the lights that have been shining in this city longer, like the footlights at Topeka Civic Theater.

Matt Porubsky is not a licensed therapist, statistician, historian or medical professional. But he is the 2009 Distinguished Kansan of the Year in arts and entertainment. Take that! Most of the time he just makes stuff up. But all of these stories are based on actual events.