Nittany Lion

By Dan Conti

About the Book
The novel is set at a time when the country seems hopelessly divided, torn apart by a war overseas, economic distress, and political corruption. A young family is coping with tragedy, a serious illness, and a future that appears fraught with peril. It is 1970 and Francis Rosselli is coming home from Vietnam. Set in the hills of central Pennsylvania, Nittany Lion is a tale that revolves around characters and events in the small town of Nollville near the Penn State University campus. A young widow, her grown son, and her eight-year-old daughter who loves basketball struggle to make sense of a world in constant turmoil.

About the Author
Dan Conti is a native of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Nittany Lion is Conti’s first novel. He has written two other books, POWs in 2006 and A Reporter's Notebook in 2017. Conti is the winner of more than thirty-five news reporting awards from the Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana Associated Press. He currently lives in Morehead, Kentucky and is a retired broadcast journalist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RoseDog Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886047561

Book preview

The Way Home

It wasn’t just cold. It was a bitterly frigid day in February, 1970 when Francis David Rosselli came home from Vietnam. He had long looked forward to the time and imagined that it would be sun-splashed and glorious, a respite from a horrible war. But perhaps upon reflection it was, he thought, as it should be.

After all, everyone hates February in his native Pennsylvania, except for the folks in Punxsutawney and they only like it on Groundhog Day. A bizarre and weird tradition, he always thought. The Nittany Lions’ football season is over at Penn State and it’s too soon for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The skies are dark and gray. Trees are barren. The smattering of snow on the hillsides and in town has turned to blackened slush. Wall-to-wall ugly. Spring seems so far away.

Still, it was good to be parted from the jungles of Vietnam, the unrelenting humidity, the sights and sounds of scorched earth and the smell. Yes, those lingering smells. How they had followed him everywhere, like an unshakable head cold. Gunpowder, rotting leaves on the floor of the forest, burnt rubber and vegetation, diesel fuel and napalm.

Yet, all of those odors paled in comparison to the operating rooms of the field hospital where Francis, or FDR as his friends and family called him, spent three weeks recovering from wounds to his legs.

The smell of burning flesh was at once nauseating and overpowering when he was brought to the mobile unit. His injuries were not serious. At least, he didn’t think they were and he was embarrassed that he had been awarded the Purple Heart because of them.

Actually, Francis was going home a hero because of the recognition and a press release that the Army had sent to his hometown newspaper, The Nollville Examiner, The News Authority in South-Central Pennsylvania it boasted beneath the masthead.

The Army said Francis was wounded when his platoon was ambushed by Viet Cong guerillas near Da Nang. It stated that he had valiantly killed several enemy soldiers and held off others with his M-16 rifle while making a radio call for air strikes that quelled the attack. FDR was taken aback when he saw the release. He thought they should also have included a line about how he was eating a ham sandwich and juggling at the time.

The story was partly true but Francis knew it was considerably embellished. Actually, he explained or tried to explain to anyone who would listen, when the ambush began the radio operator was killed immediately and Francis dived to the ground for cover. The gunfire was so intense for several minutes that he dared not lift his head. Had he been able to, Francis wasn’t sure he would have anyway because he was scared out of his wits.

However, when a rocket fired from a shoulder holster cut through a Bayan tree near him and some of its huge split and splayed limbs came down on his legs, he was pinned beneath them. He feared that unless he freed himself and crawled to the radio, the Viet Cong would just walk up and shoot him point blank. Horrified by the thought, FDR braced his hands against the earth and tried to thrust himself forward. Nothing.

He tried again and again and on the third and most frenetic attempt, he extricated himself from the tree limbs and began slithering toward the radio. Lifting his rifle, he fired wildly into the air, certain that it would have been a miracle if he hit anything. He was just serving notice to the advancing ambushers that he had a gun and it was working just fine. Fortunately, so was the radio and he was able to call in the air support.  

When the battle was over, he watched as his lieutenant removed the radio operator’s dog tags. Everyone called the radio guy a dog robber. It’s what they called all radio guys. Francis never understood why. The dead soldier’s name was Scotty and he was from Idaho. No one could remember his last name.

Poor bastard, said the lieutenant. Never knew what hit him. Maybe that’s the best way to go, Francis thought. He remembered a day in basic training, back at Fort Dix, when dog tags were issued and the private in line just in front of him told the sergeant, I already got mine. Sarge said, No. This is the other set. The soldier looked confused.

Sarge shook his head impatiently and with some disgust. He didn’t think he should have to explain it. These go with the body, he said. You know, when they find you. For ID purposes. Francis was amazed at how casually the Army talked about death without ever really mentioning it. Scotty’s parents knew his last name. They’d soon be getting a call and perhaps some dog tags from Uncle Sam.

FDR was also reminded of the author Thomas Wolfe and his famous quote, You can’t go home again, and his psychology teacher at Saint George High School in Nollville, Brother Dominic. There wasn’t much Francis liked about his Catholic education but he was very fond of Brother Dominic. He would probably have never heard of Thomas Wolfe had it not been for Dominic.

B-Dom, as the students often called him, was smart, witty, a captivating story-teller and an expert on Thomas Wolfe. Dominic appeared to know about so many other things, too. At times, he seemed like a walking encyclopedia with a treasure trove of interesting information about people and things.

For instance, he knew that Edgar Allan Poe had married his cousin when she was only thirteen years old and that President Garfield could write with both hands. He knew that Mark Twain was briefly in the Confederate army and had witnessed a murder when the celebrated writer was a child of nine. Brother Dominic had Roberto Clemente’s autograph on a baseball card, which he carried with him at all times. He knew the Pirate right fielder could play the organ and once hit three triples in a single game.

He knew that ten percent of the world’s people are lefthanded and that Thomas Wolfe had died at the age of thirty-seven of tuberculosis of the brain. Tuberculosis of the brain. Who ever heard of such a thing? Well, B-Dom had.  When the Rosselli family adopted a cat from the local animal shelter four years ago, Francis named him Thomas Wolfe.  

Every time FDR listened to the Star Spangled Banner after graduating from high school, he recalled that Brother Dominic had once told his class that Great Gatsby novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald had been named after the composer of the song, Francis Scott Key.

Brother Dominic had impossibly curly red hair and students used to mimic his most endearing mannerisms in the hallways and outside of school. When someone would ask him a question, his eyebrows arched upward, he’d sigh and then stick his hands in his pockets before delivering a profound but concise response.  

The memory made Francis smile but he was well aware that Dominic’s hero, Thomas Wolfe, was right. You can’t go home again. No, you can’t and the reason you can’t is because things are never the same. Sometimes the differences are slight. Sometimes they are gargantuan. For Francis Rosselli, they were both but more of the latter.  

His father, Andrew, was dead, killed by a drunk driver. It happened near the West Virginia state line, just seven months after Francis deployed to Southeast Asia. Even two years later, it was still hard to believe, still difficult to imagine that his dad wouldn’t be picking him up at the station when his train rolled into Pittsburgh.

The errand had been passed on to Uncle Woody, not FDR’s real uncle but a lifelong friend and business partner of his father. Woodrow Penbrook and Andy Rosselli were carpenters. They built and repaired homes and commercial structures all over south-central Pennsylvania. They were in the same class at Saint George’s and served in Korea together. Folks used to say if you saw one, the other couldn’t be too far away. They had to stop saying that.

Then, there was Francis’ little sister, Rebecca. Becky was just eight years old and had not been feeling too well lately. She loved basketball and had been a wonderful pen pal for Francis when he was in Vietnam, telling him all about the games she had played in and what was happening at school. She was good for a letter every month and there were days when the sight of her handwriting was the only good thing in the world. To have lost your father and then be sick and eight years old, well, it just didn’t seem right.

It didn’t seem right that the beautiful Jennifer Garrison Rosselli should be a widow at the age of thirty-none, either. She married Andy when she was only seventeen because, as she told everyone, she knew instinctively that he was the one. She was always madly in love with him but people were now telling her she should start dating again. She just couldn’t. Life had dealt her the cruelest of hands. Her faith was shaken but it was not broken.

It had been a mere thirty months since FDR left Nollville but the universe had been radically altered by some deranged monster. Martin Luther King Junior and Bobby Kennedy were dead. There was a new president and Richard Nixon called his plan for ending the war Vietnamization. U.S. troops would be withdrawn and South Vietnamese soldiers would be stepping up to replace them. Who knows? Maybe, it would work. Bombing the hell out of them apparently wasn’t.

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and the Beatles were breaking up. You can’t go home again. The phrase kept spinning through his head like the refrain of Yellow Submarine as the song was fading out. So many things change, some because you want them to and some because you’re powerless to stop them even if you didn’t.

Yep. It had only been thirty months but the world Francis was re-entering was so different, so strange. Thirty months. Could have been thirty years.

Nittany Lion-The Train

The Trenton train station that had delivered Francis Rosselli to Fort Dix for basic training was now about to send him home. It was busier than it should have been at five forty-five in the morning, Francis thought.  

Why would you get up that early unless you were forced to? Or maybe some lowly private was blowing a bugle? Or some sadistic sergeant was walking through your barracks banging on a metal garbage can? FDR might miss a handful of things about the Army but those would not be among them.

A smoky mist wafted across the platform where a motley bunch of travelers were all waiting with varying degrees of impatience. Some were standing, some sitting on benches. Many were checking their watches, blowing on their hands, bouncing up and down on the balls of their feet, turning their coat collars high. Anything to stay warm but nothing helped much.

Some industrious youngsters were hawking early editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times. A whistle sounded. Rails screeched. A train peeked through the fog and slowly came to rest where a line of passengers was assembling. About time, said one man. Finally, said another.

Francis glanced at the front page of another person’s newspaper as he boarded the coach and worked his way forward. It was good to be out of the cold. FDR was wearing an Army jacket and his light fatigues underneath. A little boy stood on his seat, looked up at him and saluted. A young couple a few seats down glared at him contemptuously as he passed, certain he had just come from the Mi Lai massacre.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang behind him and a clumping sound. Francis jerked his head around. A soldier on crutches was doing his best to negotiate the aisle and to find an empty seat. He was struggling a bit and he was missing his right leg. The soldier and Francis made eye contact. Neither said anything. They didn’t have to. They shared the awful intimacy that only strangers in war can know.

FDR heard the soldier apologize to a passenger he had accidently bumped with one of his crutches. Sorry, he joked. Had a rough day at the office. Francis found a window seat and sat down. He felt like tossing his Purple Heart into the ocean.

A tall, balding man with a newspaper in one hand and a briefcase in the other leaned in toward Francis. He flashed a smile. Perfect teeth. Mind if I partner up with you, buddy?

No, said Francis. There’s nobody sitting here. Go ahead.

The man plopped down in the adjacent seat and removed his overcoat. He was wearing a three-piece suit. It looked a little too small. Probably custom-made and fit just right when he bought it but that was before he gained about twenty pounds. He loosened his tie, took a deep breath and stretched out his hand for Francis to shake it.

Dick Diamond, he announced. Folks call me Double-D! Double-D spoke rapidly and loudly, like an auctioneer or as if Francis was hard of hearing. He wasn’t. Frank. Frank Rosselli. Lord, it’s good to be inside! he said. Old Man Winter must’ve got up on the wrong side of bed today. He sure packed a wallop, didn’t he, buddy?

Francis smiled. I guess so. Double-D cracked open his brief case and retrieved some papers. He shuffled them as he cocked his head toward Francis. Where you bound, soldier? he asked. To Pittsburgh, FDR replied. Then down to Nollville. Nollville, he repeated slowly while racking his brain. Never heard of it. It’s not too far from Penn State, Francis explained. To the south a ways.

Penn State, Diamond uttered the words with approval and enthusiasm. That’s my cash cow!  Francis looked puzzled.  What do you mean? I do radio sales in Harrisburg, replied Diamond. "We carry Penn State football. Back to back undefeated seasons in ‘68 and ‘69.