Chip Shot: More flashbacks than a Kung Fu episode
January 30, 2021 at 4:49 a.m.
Chip Shot: More flashbacks than a Kung Fu episode
By Chip Davenport-
If one of my Ohio State roommates read the most recent handful of columns I’ve written, they would say, “Chip, you’re having more flashbacks than Cane has in ‘Kung Fu’ episodes!”
Allow me to bring you young whippersnappers up to speed.
There was a show starring David Carradine in the 1970s titled “Kung Fu.” It seemed before the weekly plot’s biggest moments, Cane, Carradine’s character’s name, would have a flashback and the camera returned to real time to show how it fueled his subsequent heroic martial arts moves.
My college roommates and I somehow made time to watch Kung Fu, in syndication during the early ‘80s, almost every Saturday night regardless of our social calendar.
Today’s flashback takes me to my Air Force service, ten years altogether, but this is August, 1991.
I attended a professional development course at a different base from mine due to its perfect timing and its availability. Whether a person was assigned to the base where the course was or not, we, the Air Force’s enlisted “middle management” all had to stay in a dorm-like setting.
Classmates knew I imitated people’s voices and mannerisms from weeknight evenings spent together as captive adults.
They knew I could mimic one of our instructors. This instructor blended professionalism and brevity while teaching us how to be effective military leaders and communicators. He was so easy to mimic. No idiosyncrasies, just an imitable voice, some easy-to-study body language, and a genuine Eddie Murphy laugh.
My classmates called me out to imitate this instructor a few minutes before adjourning for lunch. My levity side wanted to pander to my classmates, and strangely, my professional side was suddenly comfortable because the instructor just finished making us all laugh. Time – check! Place – check!
I nailed it! He made a pregnant pause, I held my breath, and then told me had been mimicked by many, and impressed by none of them… until that moment.
I quickly turned the joke back on me before anyone asked for an encore.
I said, “Tech Sergeant Nettles, in all fairness, allow me to give you some pointers on imitating me.”
I turned to the class and said, “I’m Staff Sergeant Chip Davenport, and at Wright-Patterson we had this thing happen…”
I blinked my eyes rapidly with a very exaggerated tic while I was saying this. The group roared. I quickly and successfully moved the laughs off Nettles and onto my idiosyncrasies instead. That’s a safer place for me.
A classmate came to me at lunch and, in her North Carolina accent, said, “You really DO that (blinking), and I thought what’re you doin’ up there? It was funnier than your imitation. It was so funny seeing you let your hair down like that.”
Flashback’s over, and now, as Cane did in “Kung Fu”, I return to the here and now.
I spin a lot of plates in the air among roles I perform at high school sporting events. I’m most self-assured in my public address announcer roles I’ve performed since Fall 2014, so you won’t see much self-deprecation from me in that capacity.
The other roles, however, of play-by-play broadcaster, freelance sportswriter, and weekly columnist trigger feelings teetering toward inadequacy then tottering toward exhilaration. Meanwhile you, the listener, and the reader, share this excruciating development process with me while you are just trying to follow the game’s broadcast, or reading the previous night’s results.
While I continue to grow, I’ll continue to handle speed bumps by letting my har down just as I did almost thirty years ago. If someone approaches me in these capacities saying, “We need to talk” then I’ll know levity needs to make much more room for professionalism.
I might paint a nice picture over the airwaves or in print of certain moments in a ballgame, but I can’t seem to stop myself, after a verbal speed bump, from sharing something off the wall like, “…and I just choked on my saliva!” I’ll give credit where credit is due for that line, Grace Jones.
You already know I hate my game articles almost immediately following their trip through cyberspace to my editor!
Those who’ve known and loved me for years will matter-of-factly tell you each of these moments is “vintage Chip”, and they can close their eyes picturing me exaggeratedly blinking… my eyes.
If one of my Ohio State roommates read the most recent handful of columns I’ve written, they would say, “Chip, you’re having more flashbacks than Cane has in ‘Kung Fu’ episodes!”
Allow me to bring you young whippersnappers up to speed.
There was a show starring David Carradine in the 1970s titled “Kung Fu.” It seemed before the weekly plot’s biggest moments, Cane, Carradine’s character’s name, would have a flashback and the camera returned to real time to show how it fueled his subsequent heroic martial arts moves.
My college roommates and I somehow made time to watch Kung Fu, in syndication during the early ‘80s, almost every Saturday night regardless of our social calendar.
Today’s flashback takes me to my Air Force service, ten years altogether, but this is August, 1991.
I attended a professional development course at a different base from mine due to its perfect timing and its availability. Whether a person was assigned to the base where the course was or not, we, the Air Force’s enlisted “middle management” all had to stay in a dorm-like setting.
Classmates knew I imitated people’s voices and mannerisms from weeknight evenings spent together as captive adults.
They knew I could mimic one of our instructors. This instructor blended professionalism and brevity while teaching us how to be effective military leaders and communicators. He was so easy to mimic. No idiosyncrasies, just an imitable voice, some easy-to-study body language, and a genuine Eddie Murphy laugh.
My classmates called me out to imitate this instructor a few minutes before adjourning for lunch. My levity side wanted to pander to my classmates, and strangely, my professional side was suddenly comfortable because the instructor just finished making us all laugh. Time – check! Place – check!
I nailed it! He made a pregnant pause, I held my breath, and then told me had been mimicked by many, and impressed by none of them… until that moment.
I quickly turned the joke back on me before anyone asked for an encore.
I said, “Tech Sergeant Nettles, in all fairness, allow me to give you some pointers on imitating me.”
I turned to the class and said, “I’m Staff Sergeant Chip Davenport, and at Wright-Patterson we had this thing happen…”
I blinked my eyes rapidly with a very exaggerated tic while I was saying this. The group roared. I quickly and successfully moved the laughs off Nettles and onto my idiosyncrasies instead. That’s a safer place for me.
A classmate came to me at lunch and, in her North Carolina accent, said, “You really DO that (blinking), and I thought what’re you doin’ up there? It was funnier than your imitation. It was so funny seeing you let your hair down like that.”
Flashback’s over, and now, as Cane did in “Kung Fu”, I return to the here and now.
I spin a lot of plates in the air among roles I perform at high school sporting events. I’m most self-assured in my public address announcer roles I’ve performed since Fall 2014, so you won’t see much self-deprecation from me in that capacity.
The other roles, however, of play-by-play broadcaster, freelance sportswriter, and weekly columnist trigger feelings teetering toward inadequacy then tottering toward exhilaration. Meanwhile you, the listener, and the reader, share this excruciating development process with me while you are just trying to follow the game’s broadcast, or reading the previous night’s results.
While I continue to grow, I’ll continue to handle speed bumps by letting my har down just as I did almost thirty years ago. If someone approaches me in these capacities saying, “We need to talk” then I’ll know levity needs to make much more room for professionalism.
I might paint a nice picture over the airwaves or in print of certain moments in a ballgame, but I can’t seem to stop myself, after a verbal speed bump, from sharing something off the wall like, “…and I just choked on my saliva!” I’ll give credit where credit is due for that line, Grace Jones.
You already know I hate my game articles almost immediately following their trip through cyberspace to my editor!
Those who’ve known and loved me for years will matter-of-factly tell you each of these moments is “vintage Chip”, and they can close their eyes picturing me exaggeratedly blinking… my eyes.
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