Squeaky's Favorite Hot Dog
Description: Der Weinerschnitzel Hot Dog Restaurant frequented by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme
Location: Torr-Anza Square, 4455 Torrance Boulevard, Torrance
from Great God Pan #11, 1997
As Beatlemania spread its foppish tentacles across America, middle-class nobody William Fromme moved his family from the Los Angeles airport neighborhood of Westchester, California, to a new home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Redondo Beach. Little did he know that, thanks to secret messages from those four lads from Liverpool, his family name was soon to become synonomous with terror and his daughter an oddly-nicknamed would-be murderess.
The oldest of three children, carrot-topped and freckle-faced Lynne Fromme had just completed the tenth grade. An intelligent and likeable young girl, she had never received less than a B in her classes and had been one of the star dancers in a troupe called the Lariats back in Westchester. Aside from some rather strict parenting, her upbringing seemed pretty normal. She soon enrolled at Redondo Union High School, alma mater of comedy team the Smothers Brothers. 
Like teenagers everywhere, the youth of Redondo Beach enjoyed outings to the nearby beaches, shopping sprees at the local mall and snacking at fast food restaurants. According to Jess Bravin’s new biography Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme, the future Manson girl and would-be presidential assassin was no exception. Though not too outwardly social, Lynne was well thought of amongst her small circle of friends—as a rebel, an aspiring poet and above all, somewhat of an intellectual. A conversation between Lynne and her friend Rachel on a visit to a Torrance Der Weinerschnitzel restaurant in 1966 is transcribed in Bravin’s book.
Rachel ordered a “polish dog”—[pronouncing it] as in shoe polish.
Lynne nudged the younger girl. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes . . .” Rachel answered tentatively.
“Are you sure?” Lynne repeated.
“Polish dog?” she said, as in Warsaw. “I’ll have a Polish dog!” Rachel [then] told the counterman. Lynne was so knowledgeable, Rachel thought. So superior.
From her family home at 1314 Amethyst Street, and later from her “rickety” bachelorette apartment on Catalina Avenue, Fromme lived the life of your basic misfit. An intelligent outcast at school (her army jacket, black tights and harsh bangs had her labeled as “quirky, even Beat” by her fellow students), frequent run-ins with her modestly tyrannical father led the young lass to turn to the bottle a little more frequently than the other kids. She discovered uppers and moved out on her own, holding down odd jobs at a frame store (where she was observed stapling herself repeatedly with a staple gun) and as a furniture saleswoman at the Old Towne Mall on Hawthorne Boulevard. 
Eventually she made up with her father long enough to enroll at El Camino Junior College where she studied French, theater arts, psychology and modern dance. It was not to last long, however. The fragile truce with her father soon began to disintegrate. When she could take no more, Lynne hitchhiked to Venice, “the Bohemian district of Los Angeles” where she sat weeping at a bus stop until being approached by one Charles Manson. The rest is history.