Among the many subtle effects of Ronald Broadnax's encroaching blindness, his family mentions this one first: The driver became the rider, and the rider became the driver. Neither is particularly happy with the arrangement.

"The biggest impact was that we swapped where we sat in the car," Broadnax says.

Broadnax, the former IBM engineer who fell prey to an incurable vision impairment, had always done the driving, while his wife, Mary, had always settled into the co-pilot/navigator/spouse seat. Their two boys got the back. They were old school, the Broadnax family. To see them was to have the sensation of having stepped into a 1950s car commercial. In some ways, all that was missing was Dinah Shore's melodic encouragement to see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet.

Those days are over. When you can't see, you don't drive.

"I used to love for him to drive," Mary says. Now, she handles 85 percent of the driving, with sons Ronald Jr. and James picking up the slack. Furthermore, where Broadnax was an appreciative passenger at first, "now he's a terrible back-seat driver," she says.

She's teasing -- sort of.

Broadnax's plea to this charge? Guilty. "I still want to drive," he says. "On the interstate, if I hear us passing everybody, I'm asking, 'Are you speeding?' "

This is, seemingly, a chronic suspicion. The Broadnaxes attend church in Youngsville, which is about 25 miles from their home in Durham County. They make the drive twice a week -- they're Baptists, so church on Wednesday is a given -- and their time on the road is too short, in Ron's estimate. Mary has to be driving too fast for them to get there that quickly, he says.

He's teasing -- sort of.

The Broadnaxes have been married for more than two decades. Like any long-term couple, they fell into certain domestic roles and patterns. Unlike most long-term couples, however, they've had to create new roles and patterns. That tends to create stress, so Ron and Mary meet it with mock exasperation. They're still feeling their way along this journey, and humor helps.

Ask them about Ron's endless demands for product information, for instance, and you'll get an earful.

A trip to an electronics store can be a day-killer. Ron will want Mary to read him all the product specifications printed on the box containing a piece of equipment. He's a dedicated comparison shopper, so he'll also want her to read all the information on the box of a competing product. Maybe two competing products. But his 53-year-old memory sometimes short-circuits, which will lead him to pose a question like: "How many watts did you say this one had?"

Mary's likely reply when her patience has reached its limit: "How many times do I have to read this?"

But she knows the answer. She'll read the information from product boxes as many times as Ron asks. She'll also read out loud every credit card solicitation that arrives at the house, thumb through every computer catalog to tell him what's on sale and describe every piece of junk mail.

After all, it's not his fault he can't see.

Conquering chores

Driving and reading, of course, are two of those no-can-do activities. But there are a surprising number of things that Broadnax continues to tackle. Mary cuts him some slack -- but only a little. Broadnax still has chores to tend to, as well as a new, unexpected duty.

Among the existing chores is gutter-cleaning. You don't have to see to clean a gutter. You can do it by feel, as Broadnax demonstrates several times a year. The family home in a once-rural, but increasingly suburban, area of eastern Durham County is surrounded by pine trees. Pine needles are a particularly effective clogging substance and should be removed regularly. So Broadnax leans a ladder against the house, climbs until he can touch the gutter and claws out the needles. Then he moves the ladder and repeats the process.

Time-consuming but easy, right? Yeah, until the day comes when you disturb the wasp nest under the gutter. "I learned my lesson there," Broadnax says.

There are also floors to be mopped, carpets to be vacuumed, dishes to be washed, tubs to be scrubbed, clothes to be laundered and cars to be maintained. The first four of those aren't challenging: You mop, vacuum or wipe until simple odds dictate that you've probably hit every soiled spot. But what about laundry?

You attach small dots to the washing machine controls. For instance, one dot for a low-load setting, two dots for a full load. (As for the microwave, ditto on the dots.)

OK, how about car maintenance? For starters, you pop the hood, take the cap off the radiator and stick your finger in the opening. If it's wet, there's coolant in the radiator. Then, while you have the hood up, you tug on the belts to make sure they're still tight. Maybe feel the tread on the tires.

Also, as long as you're outside, you might as well gather firewood and stack it by the door. Or do some lawn work, "although I'm not the best at trimming bushes," Broadnax says, deadpan.

These are things that Broadnax did, or helped with, before his vision failed. Now, however, there's an addition to his chore list: baking.

The credit -- or fault, depending on your viewpoint -- lies with the cooking lessons at the N.C. Rehabilitation Center for the Blind in Raleigh, which Broadnax took as part of the standard curriculum. One day, after he returned home with the results of his efforts, Mary offered a verdict on his progress. The carrot cake was delicious, "and his [sweet] potato pie was good, too."

Broadnax is now the family baker. He was on the hook for three sweet potato pies and another carrot cake for Thanksgiving.

No education goes unpunished.

Getting back to work

There's an elephant in the room that has to be acknowledged. Broadnax isn't working -- but he wants to.

When your vision fails, a whole bunch of things get crossed off the list of career possibilities. When work skills are taught, or refreshed, at the Rehab Center, they tend to be focused on office-and-telephone jobs: receptionist, customer service representative, keyboarding. "We used to get a lot of computer programming [opportunities], but not much anymore," says instructor Laura O'Neal.

Broadnax, a lifelong electronics engineer, spent his career at IBM before retiring last year. Mary likewise was employed by IBM, and now works for Lenovo, the Chinese-owned manufacturer that bought IBM's personal computer business. But she already is starting to think about life's next stage: "We're trying to get something lined up for the future," she says.

Their plan, for now, is to establish Ron as an independent insurance broker, selling life and health insurance policies from an office at the Broadnax home. Mary would be Ms. Outside while Ron would be Mr. Inside -- speaking literally.

If it doesn't work out, Mary thinks Ron would make a great teacher. "He soaks stuff up," she says.

For all their talk of the future, however, there's one topic the Broadnaxes have yet to broach. Curiously, they've never discussed the possibility that Ron's vision could completely fade someday.

"Believe it or not, we haven't had that discussion yet," Mary says. "We may be in delayed-reaction mode."

Instead, Mary reflexively asks Ron questions designed to tell her how much his sight has deteriorated. Can he see the television? How much of it can he see? Can he see the stereo? What can he see on the wall? Anything?

The answers aren't encouraging.

That's why, perhaps, any discussion of the future tends to end quickly. The present is distressing enough.