Origins

Fremont, Nebraska, is a flat city on the flood plain of an elbow of the Platte. The city is named after John C. Fremont(1), a 19th Century American explorer who never set foot in the it(2). But every mid-July, the city celebrates John C. Fremont Days, with old-timey clothes(3), home-made rootbeer with brown, sealable, year-by-year refillable bottles, pioneer tents, astrologers, dream-catchers, beer gardens, a history of farm tractors, and memories personal and geographical.

Approaching the city from the north, one may see Sapp Brothers, once a truck stop with a greasy spoon, now a truck stop du grand, with shower stalls, hair stylist, a Wendy's fastfood restaurant, and a gift shop.

Approaching from the south, one may see the Hormel plant and a conclave of hogs before the slaughter. Owing more to carnal succulence than animal rights, the hogs are led gently through a maze to the processing(4) room, where they are rendered unconscious by a prick of electricity behind the ear. They are then strung up by the hind legs, throat cut, and bled, to facilitate making the pork kosher, it is said. After that, they are conveyed to fabrication(5) and shaped into little hotdog lengths, round and square lunchmeats, and pressed into rectangular Spam cans.

Continuing on from the south, rising across the railroad on an arching viaduct, one may see a fortress of grain elavators, before descending to the right side of the tracks into Fremont's downtown, a corridor of bars, restaurants, and furniture and clothing stores with names like Sampter's and Kavich's.

Approaching from the west, one may see the State Lakes(6), a Twentieth-Century invention. Once, they were sandstone quarries dug up with industrial single-mindedness, pitting 700 acres along the Platte River. Eventually, they were filled in recreational fervor and float the bulbous bodies of eaters of pork, their children, and their jet skis.

Approaching from the east, one will see Fremont's Walmart Supercenter, an archon of corporate determinism. It is said that Fremont's Chamber of Commerce thwarted Walmart's attempt to build its Supercenter within the city's limits. Walmart then bought farm land and built its Supercenter just outside the city. Eventually, the city limits absorbed the superchain. Fremont's Chamber of Commerce thwarted both AppleBees and Taco Bell's attempts to build in the city, owing to the Taco John's franchise and other restaurant owners positions on the chamber. AppleBees followed Walmart's model, while many of Fremont's citizens drive regularly to Omaha to eat Gorditas and 7-Layer Burritos.

I once heard, though I can't confirm, from a reserve Fremont city police and part-time college security officer, that Fremont had the highest per capita of mentally ill in Nebraska. There are, of course, stories.

Midland Lutheran College's professor of Psychology tells his students about a homeless man named Buster, who talked to himself, walked about with, but never rode, a bicycle, and accepted enough change to get by for the day. Schizophrenia, the professor diagnoses(7).

I remember an elderly woman, notorious about town, driving from place to place in her battery-powered clark cart. The same reserve officer told me that she was intercepted one day when she had it in mind to drive her cart to Omaha, at least 40 miles away by US-275 East. Having no other means to confiscate both her and her cart, the city officers called an ambulance to haul her away. The reserve officer said he thought she was a retired English professor.

Another man, gray mustached, frequented the Fremont Mall's bookstore, at which I worked. As I stood at the counter, the man would dart to the back of the store, to the magazine section, and peruse magazines like American Girl, which depicted pre-adolescent faces in the gleam of youth. He actively patroned Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report during the Jean-Benet Rasmey case. He would then skulk to the front counter, near me, where we kept the pornography, and select from a variety of "barely-legal" magazines we kept in stock. He would pay by check and leave. The other Jeff, who worked at the store, would insistently ask for his ID (to verify his age and his identity on the check), to the man's frustrated groans and throat-clearings. This Jeff once memorized the man's address and contemplated spreading flyers in his neighborhood. This Jeff said he heard that the man used to visit a copy shop, where he photocopied young girls heads to the pictures in the pornographic magazines, until a store clerk kicked him out. This Jeff said he heard that the man plays piano at a bar outside of town, that he was a student of The Julliard until he fried his brain on L.S.D.

1. Picture of John C. Fremont from http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/the-civil-war.htm.

2. Picture of Old-Timey Clothes from http://www.johncfremontdays.com/home.php.

3. One source has it that the town was named for the same John C. Fremont, who ran for president in 1856 against James Buchanan, for whom another town 25 miles from Fremont was named. Bunck, Renne. Early History of Fremont Nebraska. 19 Sept. 2000. 19 Aug. 2005. <http://www.rootsweb.com/~nedodge/fremonthist.htm>.

4. Formerly known as "killing."

5. Formerly known as "cut."

6. Also known as the "Fremont Lakes State Recreation Area."

7. I wonder whether such a man is installed in every large town or small city in America. I have only one other example. In East Grand Forks, Minnesota, a man named Albert romes the streets, most often seen outside the town's supermarket. He'll rarely talk and will pick up a broom and sweep for change. When he has enough, he may purchase a candy bar. Citizens sometimes exit the market and give him a sandwich. It is hard to say whether this man is an exemplar of social neglect, of local kindnesses, or of a community's need to see itself as simple in its designs to take care of its own, no matter how disabled.