WARWICK

Bob Venturini remembers the event as though it were yesterday. As a first grader at St. Mary’s parochial school in Pawtucket, the seven-year-old Venturini was called out of the classroom by relatives in October 1955.

“Your father’s gone away and he won’t be back,” he recalls, assuming that meant Victor J. Venturini had for some reason abandoned his family. But the reality was soon explained. At age 36, Victor was dead of a heart attack.

Two months later, Bob recalled, he opened a Christmas gift, a pair of hand-me-down tennis shoes worn by an older brother, wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

Venturini welled up with tears as he reminisced about the hard- knock life he endured with a large family with one parent, and the trauma he survived and how it motivated him to help less fortunate children as he grew older.

Venturini hosts his 11th telethon to assist the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots program, from 5 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday at the Warwick Mall, telecast live on Cox channel 70.

The event is dedicated to the memory of his father and a 49-year-old brother, also named Victor, a U.S. Marine and veteran of the Vietnam War, who died in 1995.

Venturini was born in Cumberland 56 years ago at the home of his grandparents. “I was coming out and no one was stopping me,” he said with a laugh, remembering what his mother, Shirley, told about the experience.

From early childhood until just a few months ago, Venturini lived in the Woodlawn section of Pawtucket, before moving to East Greenwich.

Now divorced, he and his wife Peggy had two children during their 18-year marriage: a daughter, Tracey, now 37, and son Matthew, 38. Venturini has a second son, 10-year-old Zachary, who lives with him and has become a frequent guest on his father’s cable TV show, “Bob’s Big Adventures.”

Venturini acknowledged that he established his partnership with the U.S. Marines in part to help him deal with the hardships that he faced as a child, the emotional and psychological impact of the loss of his father and his family’s struggles through many holidays.

“You need both parents in the family setting,” Venturini said, pausing to wipe away more tears. He described how his siblings did what they could to help after his father died. Shining shoes, working at a local Laundromat, selling newspapers or cleaning up manure from horses at the former Narragansett Park raceway. Venturini said he bounced from one odd job to the next and brought his meager income home to his mother.

Venturini said Christmas came and went year after year, and he learned to do without, envying the neighborhood children who always seemed to have more than he did. He said even today, Venturini is still troubled by the experience, and vowed that he would do what he could to prevent children from going without at least one toy at Christmas.

“People have a happy image of Christmas. I have a very sorrowful image of Christmas,” Venturini said.

He remembered one tearful holiday when a child living next door brought out his new baseball bat and glove to show off, knowing that there were few good tidings available in the Venturini household.

On his TV program, he admits that he has little sympathy for parents who spend hundreds of dollars each year to satisfy their children’s demands while so many have nothing under their tree. During the telethon, individuals donated thousands of new, unwrapped Toys for Tots, an outpouring of support that often leaves Venturini overwhelmed.

“I could never deal with receiving gifts,” Venturini said. “I always played Santa, but I could never deal with receiving gifts for Christmas.”

He added that his son Zachary has often sacrificed many of his own gifts to benefit the Toys for Tots program.

“That’s probably the greatest satisfaction,” he said, looking forward to this year’s show, “a stage filled with toys.”

WARWICK

When his Christmas visit to Rhode Island troops stationed in Hungary was likened to those of a USO entertainment legend, the temptation proved too much for someone in the recreation hall. “Bob Hope, or no hope?” was the glib, but good-natured, response.

Bob Venturini, host of cable TV’s Bob’s Big Adventures, may very well have single-handedly changed the face of Europe. What remains to be seen is how profoundly the experience has changed Bob. But even Bob concedes he is changed.

Members of the media were invited to accompany Major General Reginald Centracchio’s Christmas visit to his troops stationed in the Balkans. Members of the 119th Military Police Company, Rhode Island National Guard, were deployed in August to join Operation Joint Forge in a peacekeeping mission. They are stationed in Taszár, Hungary, a base occupied by the USSR only 11 years ago.

Bob seems physically attached to his video camera. If he lives it, he films it. Editing the countless hours of tape he collected while accompanying the command visit seems an impossible task, but those videotaped open-mouthed while catnapping on the C130, or joining the troops in lifting a beer or two (for the purpose of improving soldier morale, only) would like to have a hand in scrapping some of the footage.

As Bob joined the crew in the cockpit of the C130, walked through quaint villages in the Azores, and met with soldiers and officers at the recreation center on the Hungarian base, his message was virtually the same. Bob coached individuals and groups wherever he went to say into the camera, “When I’m not [piloting airplanes, shopping in Praia Da Vitória, commanding the troops], I watch Bob’s Big Adventures. Without fail, people happily obliged, often through several retakes.

It doesn’t matter to Bob that most of those responding couldn’t tune into one of his programs if they wanted to, since the shows air on the local cable access channel. Neither was a strong command of English a prerequisite.

It was not long before the television host, who handed out Bob stickers by the hundreds, was recognized on village streets and pubs. “BOB!” was the greeting whenever he arrived. It was impossible not to be reminded of Norm from the Cheers sitcom.

Unlike the Norm character, however, Bob doesn’t drink. In spite of assumptions to the contrary from those who commented on Bob’s boisterous manner, he never touches the stuff.

The stickers bearing his caricature began to appear in the most unlikely places. Villagers wore them. Children at the orphanage wore them. A dog at the orphanage wore one. (Bob vehemently denies placing the sticker on a defenseless animal, and was later cleared of the charge when the real culprit stepped forward.) Beacon publisher John Howell sported one on his laptop.

The stickers were seen in two different C130s, surrounded by other stickers representing paratroopers and military groups who’d been there before him. They were on the bumpers of taxicabs in Hungary, and affixed to a humvee or two. Nary a soldier in Taszár could be found who did not display a Bob sticker on his uniform. New recruits will doubtless assume them to be standard issue.

Reports that a Bob sticker was found on the nose of the Russian MiG displayed on the base in Taszár were unconfirmed at press time.

Major Michael McNamara, Public Affairs Officer for the Rhode Island National Guard, could often be seen shaking his head in mock disapproval at Bob’s endless antics. In a required briefing attended by both military and media the week before the Quonset departure, the group was warned not to display conduct associated with the “Ugly American.” Loud, flamboyant behavior, which would inevitably draw unwanted attention was to be avoided at all costs. Mike couldn’t resist reminding Bob of the warning. In response, Venturini shot the major a delighted grin. The ribbing served only to fuel Bob.

Tom Kelly, also a Rhode Island cable host, provided Bob with a video alter ego during the Christmas junket. Kelly, an army veteran, treated the experience with somewhat greater reverence. On occasion, however, the two engaged in a form of “dueling videos,” and turned their ever-running cameras on one another.

Only one event in the weeklong journey seemed to knock the wind out of the sails of the ever-jovial Bob Venturini. While all-smiles at the orphanages the group visited on Christmas Day, on the bus ride home the usually very visible videographer seemed to disappear.

The father of a six-year-old he missed desperately, Bob struggled to make sense of the sheer numbers of children without parents, and failed to find an adequate answer.

Bob did, eventually, return to his buoyant manner. It was clear, though, that the experience left him changed.

The rest of the group, in the meantime, looks forward to the next chapter of Bob’s Big Adventures, while privately hoping that they themselves do not appear.

WARWICK

Southern Rhode Island Newspaper photographer Ernest Brown, a Nikon hanging from a neck strap and pockets bulging with lenses, came up to get a glimpse. Co-pilot Andrew Dougherty wedged out of his seat for a break, allowing Ernie to slide in for some unusual shots.

Bob Venturini and Tom Kelly were up for video shots of the Alpine show. The light dimmed quickly, a combination of the fading winter sunlight and our eastward travel.

By the time we were making our descent, the Hungarian landscape of plowed fields divided by popular-lined country roads and stands of trees and shrubs was a quilt of browns and grays. The occasional field of winter wheat gleamed like an emerald in the pattern.

I craned to get a better view from the small window ahead of my seat and was startled when a drop of cold water hit me on top of the head. More drops followed, the water beading and rolling off my jacket. Kyle caught my confused look.

Although I fully knew there wasn’t anything like fresh water pumping aboard a C-13, had some connector sprung a leak?

“Condensation,” he said, the water dripping around him, too.

The rest of the crew was dry and already gathering items around them for our arrival. Now began the purpose of our visit.

The general was charged. He bounded off the plane as soon as the stairs dropped to the tarmac and the engines whined to a stop. Col. Charles Ayers, Taszár base commander, and Lt. Robert Martin, 119th Military Police commander, were among the first to greet us.

The air was crisp, a pleasant relief from the musty cabin interior and its smell of oil. It was cold and there was no dallying on the airstrip.

The media was directed to a bus, its Hungarian driver greeting us with a toothy smile. We said hello. He smiled some more, obviously having gone through this experience before and knowing whatever he could have said in Hungarian would be wasted.

A short ride later and we were in front of a giant tent. Here we would be processed for intake and given instructions on the dos and don’ts on base. For Meg Brugeman and Rita Kelly, there was no question of the first stop. And for Meg, the second priority was food.

Lunches packaged in plastic bags with “Jimmy Dean” written across them were stacked alongside a large coffee urn. The lunches looked appetizing after eight hours of little more than an apple and a few walnuts. Each sealed lunch contained a couple of sandwiches, chips and a boxed drink.

I followed Meg’s lead to discover the ham and cheese I had selected was a jawbreaker. It was frozen. I worked on it nonetheless.

Intake processing took another 45 minutes as passports were stamped, photos were taken for identification badges, and we were briefed.

The intake center was humming. It was a knockoff of a commercial airport with some people slumped in chairs partially asleep, others mindlessly watching a large screen TV while the majority moved purposely from one location to the next. The difference was that everyone was in uniform. Well, almost everyone.

Those of us in civilian dress felt out of place. Taszár, I was to learn from Master Sgt. Brian D. O’Connors, is at the crossroads to American troop deployment to Kosovo and Bosnia.

It is also the place many troops come when on military leave, as they can easily reach nearby Kaposvar, or with a drive of a couple of hours be in Budapest.

Our destination was the base, all of a 10-minute drive through a rural settlement of single story, bricked houses. They were practically on the road. Lights shone dimly through curtains and in the night shadows one could see gardens of grape vines and cabbage.

As we approached the base, two- and three-story buildings appeared in the yellow of aging streetlights. The numbered buildings had been quarters less than 12 years ago for the Russian staff. Taszár was once a Soviet MiG base and missile site. Now the Americans lease it from the Hungarians.

The irony was all the more evident at the base gate. A Hungarian soldier, wearing a green hat with earflaps tied up, stood alongside an American MP. Both looked to be kids, guards of a generation to follow the Cold War.

Our accommodations reportedly were built for MiG pilots. Aesthetically, the building offered little. Concrete corridors were wide and well lit.

Mid-way on each floor was a latrine with rows of showers in one room, followed by urinals in another, and sinks in a third. Stalls with toilets with pull chains to release water from wall-mounted tanks were across from the urinals.

The rooms were large with four beds each. 1970 vintage furniture including a stained couch, a couple of tables with chairs, and a bureau with drawers, positioned to divvy up each living area.

There were no curtains on two windows that rose to the ceiling from in front of a long narrow radiator. Cold air slipped in from the windows, which opened forward. Ernie and I wrestled with the latches to no avail.

I imagined a long night of trying to keep warm, which was reinforced by the sight of our bedding. On each mattress were a couple of sheets, a pillow and pillowcase, and a thin, cotton bedspread.

Tom Kelly was enraged by the conditions, not that the Marine veteran had seen better during his tour of duty, that took him to Okinawa and the Far East in the early 1950s. From his point of view, it was an insult to billet this Rhode Island delegation, which had sacrificed their Christmas, in such conditions.

Bob Venturini, on the other hand, reveled in the novelty of the environment. Video camera in hand, he scanned the blank walls with outlets that hung loosely from their wires. He had to try the red iron triangle at the end of the hall—the fire alarm. And he was in your face with the camera asking, “Comrade, vught du you ink?”

After a day, the novelty of the room had worn off. It wasn’t The Plaza, but there was plenty of heat, the showers were hot, and the beds were firm. Tom cooled off quickly.

This was home for the next two days. But as we were soon to discover, while temporary accommodations for us, Taszár will be home, like it or not, for the 135 men and women of the 119th until March. And, it being Christmas, home was far away to many…very far away.