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High atop the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., there’s a light they switch on only when Congress is in session.

It’s a view that had special meaning when Victoria-raised Walt Nicholson walked home from his subway stop Wednesday. It looked like a beacon. Democracy was continuing, the politicians doing their job. The mob hadn’t won.

“That light is still on,” Nicholson said from his home, six blocks from the scene of the day’s madness.

No, he couldn’t describe much else of what was going on, having holed up inside as required by an emergency order slapped on the city. “I’ve been under curfew for 90 minutes,” he said. “I’m bored.”

Well, boring was probably good, given the lunacy that gripped Washington. Nicholson, who works for a Canadian company in Virginia, was still trying to process what had happened.

Was the violence surprising? In truth, he said, the surprising part is that only one person got shot and killed when this wild-eyed pack of Trump extremists invaded the Capitol Building. But the extremists themselves? “They’ve been prepping for some kind of craziness for a very long time.”

The funny thing is, Nicholson boarded the subway home from his job just as many of the departing president’s supporters were disembarking. “What I saw was all these Trump people getting off the subway — peaceful, calm, on the way to their next thing.” It was a strange sight, given the violence of the day.

Nicholson, who moved to Washington from Victoria 10 years ago, has had a unique perspective on Washington’s shifting reality. His brother Marv Nicholson was the White House trip director during Barack Obama’s time in office. More importantly, Marv was a key member of Obama’s inner circle, the guy the president would hang out with when he wanted to let his guard down and shoot baskets, or play golf, or whatever. When the St. Michaels University School grad got married four years ago this week, Obama was one of the groomsman.

Walt Nicholson got an occasional close-up glimpse of that life, visiting the White House (“It’s a lot smaller than you think. The West Wing is tiny.”) or, a dozen times or more, joining his brother and Obama on the golf course.

In fact, Nicholson spent his 44th birthday golfing with the 44th president — Obama — Marv and then vice-president Joe Biden. When Nicholson mentioned to his brother how surreal that was, it was Biden who laughed and replied “Isn’t it?”

“He was such a calm and confident guy,” Nicholson said of Biden. “And he has a really good golf swing.”

Sometimes people would treat Nicholson as though he, not his brother, was Obama’s confidante. Someone sent him a position paper on natural gas exploration, hoping Walt would slip it to the president on the golf course. Um, no. Likewise a prominent Victoria musician was unable to persuade Nicholson to give Obama a recording of what the musician hoped would become the president’s theme song. “I think he’s got Hail To The Chief and I think he’s good with it,” Nicholson reasoned.

Those were much different days, with a much different White House. Nicholson wonders whether the new administration will hold Trump accountable for his actions. “I think they’ll Gerald Ford it and say: ‘We need to move on as a country.’ ”

OK, but moving on means getting past what happened Wednesday. Nicholson doesn’t think there was much strategy behind the riot. It feels as though it flashed to life when the opportunity opened, he said. By nightfall, calm had descended. “The city’s dead quiet.”

Maybe this evening Nicholson will be able to get out again. “My nightly walk is around the Capitol Building.” Maybe sanity will finally return to Washington, and the light will continue to shine.

jknox@timescolonist.com