I didn’t want to think about Newtown but President Obama brought it up today in his inaugural address. Even his Inaugural poet Richard Blanco did the same in his poem One Light.
“…All of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the `I have a dream’ we keep dreaming, or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of 20 children marked absent today, and forever.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., later said Obama had “evoked Newtown as a very powerful symbol. He clearly senses that it has a profound historical significance, even larger than the 26 lives lost, in what it could mean for the nation.” Blumenthal added, “He enshrined Newtown in our history.”
In 1965 I lost a good childhood friend to a mass shooting. A father came home and shot his wife and 6 children and then shot himself. I haven’t thought about it in years. Newtown brought it all back to me. I remember reading that someone had said that the best thing we could do was to remember the names of the children, even if only one.
I remember her name. Noreen Hogue, she was my friend.
A Google search revealed sadly that all that is remembered from the day is her father’s name and the extent of his crimes.. He will always be in the history books and talked about and remembered as a mass murder. He will figure into discussions about gun control. She has vanished.
I choose to remember her and our friendship. Please remember the children.
Inaugural quotes taken from: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Newtown-shootings-remembered-at-inauguration-4212162.php
Amazed With Mystery 
After Sandy Hook I vowed to remember those 28 people, Adam Lange, his mother, the others he killed. For a while I wore a black ribbon. It was hard. I felt my desire to stop being reminded of my vulnerability, to forget Adam’s sad case. The dharma spoke directly to me about this.
Hello Mimi. I remember the Hogue family murders. I lived very close to the cemetery in Coquitlam where the family is buried and was around the same age as the children at the time. I would be interested in speaking with you more about this in private if possible.
Gary
Noreen was my friend also. We were in Library together at Parkland. I still think about her. Gary, Mimi, I would like to connect with you both.
I was close friends with the family of one of Hogue’s partners in the heist that led to the murders. I remember him coming home after serving his prison sentence, and the family moved away some time later. I knew about the heist, but only learned last week of the murders that occured as a result almost fifty years after. Now I’m trying to find more information. The mom was a really nice lady, and only now do I realize how much she must have suffered. I would appreciate any more info on the Hogue family, as well as the heist and anything else relating to the incident.
Hi, I was a neighbour of the Houge’s. I knew all the children. I had dinner at their house. Watched TV and played with all of them. It was quite a shock. To this day around Easter time I get depressed. It was quite a while before I could bring myself to go to their gravesides. It did bring me closure. My girlfriend also a neighbour at the time took me there. Robinson Memorial Cemetary.
621 Robinson Street
Coquitlam, BC, V3J 0A6
Val C.
I have been there many years ago. I could go again on my next visit to the coast. I think the shock for all of us what that our world had changed. Death by a parent is something no child should have to learn about. Enjoy your blog posts. What bought you to that post on my blog. It is such a dark subject.
Mimi