Now Harmer offers help for others as he shares lessons learned on his journey from 20/20 vision to 20/800. He works with a local support group for other VIPs, visually impaired persons, and has recently written “How To Go Blind And Not Lose Your Mind - Dealing With the Physical and Emotional Challenges of Sight Loss.”

In April 1996, Harmer was enjoying a trip to Bishop’s Beach to gaze at the view.

“I was looking at some trees and the leaves looked out of focus,” he said. “I put a hand over one eye and, gee, suddenly things were clearer. Then, for the heck of it, I put a hand over the other eye and things weren’t so good. I knew something wasn’t right.”

He was eventually diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, a disease in which the light-sensing cells of the macula, a portion of the retina that makes it possible to see fine detail and color, malfunctions and may cease to work. There are two types of macular degeneration: dry, in which yellowish spots of fatty deposits appear on the macula, and wet, in which blood vessels leak into the retina. Harmer’s version is wet.

The bad news, doctors said, was that he would lose some sight, although no one knew how much or how quickly it would happen.

“The good news was that 90 percent of legally blind people have some sight. That cheered me right up,” Harmer said, chuckling.

Information on what to expect as his vision decreased was nonexistent. Lacking that, he slipped into denial, felt sorry for himself, was fearful and irritable, and experienced a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. In October 1997, an incident forced Harmer to confront the severity of his situation.

“They were doing some work by McDonald’s and I am almost sure, although I will never be positive, that I came close to clipping a flag girl,” he said. “When I got to work that day, I called my wife, Gwen. She’s been my chauffer ever since.”

Eighteen months after being diagnosed, Harmer’s vision had gone from 20/20, normal, to 20/200, legal blindness. As he explains it, 20/200 means that a legally blind person can see at 20 feet what someone with perfect 20/20 vision can see at 200 feet. His vision is currently 20/800 uncorrected; 20/400 with correction.

“It probably won’t get any worse, but there’s no guarantee,” he said. “I also have glaucoma, which is something I’ve had since 1989. It takes the peripheral vision. If that ever kicks in, I’ll be in deep trouble, but so far it’s treatable with medication.”

Thanks to the Independent Learning Center in Homer, the Alaska Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Blind Rehabilitation Center at American Lake, Wash., Harmer has learned how to deal with decreased vision. He received training in everything from doing the dishes to the use of high-tech equipment that allowed him to operate his business, Peninsula Tire, until he told it to Alyeska Tire in 2003.

Discovering new ways to live life has sparked a creative streak in Harmer. Frustrated by the once-easy task of putting toothpaste on his toothbrush, he invented a device that fits onto the end of the toothpaste tube. The patent is pending.

And Harmer has written a book to help others who are losing their sight.

“When I got out of the Navy in 1959, my mother told me I ought to be a writer. She told me all the letters I wrote while I was in the Navy were so darned interesting,” Harmer said of advice he got from his mother, who died three years ago. “But I said, ‘No, Mom, I want to be a business man.’ She’s probably up there laughing at me now, saying, ‘I told you so.’ I can just about hear it.”

In addition to distributing “How To Go Blind,” Harmer is working on a second book, a novel in which the villan is a blind guy.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing this right,” he said of life as a person with impaired vision. “Am I supposed to be having this much fun?”