He lost his sight but not his vision

Bill Raeder, retired president of the National Braille Press, among stacks of Braille pages at offices in the Fenway. (YOON S. BYUN/GLOBE STAFF)

Like many recent retirees, William M. Raeder kicked off his new life with a trip abroad. He picked a mountainous region in South America where hundreds of waterfalls spill across the border between Argentina and Brazil.

"Instead of being 1,000 feet wide like Niagara Falls, Iguazu Falls is many falls over a cliff that's shaped like a question mark," said Raeder, sweeping the hook that ends his right arm into the air and tracing the landscape's curves with it.

"Over here's Brazil. Here's the major fall, and downstream is this way. Over that cliff there are as many as 300 waterfalls. Some of them drop the full distance and some of them cascade down in steps," said the 72-year-old, his face brightening. "The whole thing is just absolutely spectacular. It's one of those natural wonders of the world that I'd always wanted to see."

Except that he didn't really "see" it. Raeder is blind. A stick of dynamite took his sight, his right hand, three fingers of his left hand, and some of his hearing on a geologic expedition more than 40 years ago.

But he's never lacked vision, and he traveled south to feel the gusts of mist on his face, hear the roar of the water, and take in enthusiastic descriptions of those around him.

"All of that allowed me to see it in my mind's eye," said Raeder, who lives in the Fenway and Westport. "I could never get this from the TV or a book. Being blind, I need to be there, too. I need to explore all the routes to knowledge that sighted people have access to."

This philosophy - that the blind are handicapped not by a lack of sight but by a lack of access - has defined Raeder both personally and as president of the Fenway-based National Braille Press, a position he's weaning himself from after 32 years of leadership.

In his tenure, Raeder has expanded the nonprofit's budget, defended Braille amid nationwide drops in literacy rates among the blind, and been at the front of a battle to improve societal attitudes about the blind.

"Bill is a proud and capable man and he assumes that of the larger blind community," said Paul V. McLaughlin, chairman of the board of trustees of the National Braille Press, which has been printing Braille books since 1927. "And that's helped the National Braille Press serve the blind community enormously."

Raeder's initial reaction to hearing he'd lost his sight for good - "oh my God, there I'll be sitting on the sidewalk in front of Filenes's Basement with a cup in my hand" - gradually gave way to more realistic scenarios. "I thought, 'Oh come on, I can do better than that,' " said Raeder. "And after improving each vision that came to mind of what I could do, I ended up with the thought 'well, why don't I become a US senator of Alaska?' "

Though his passion for northern climes and his interest in politics faded, his desire to improve society and establish a career saw him through dozens of job interviews and a yearlong stint as a life insurance salesman in Vermont.

"For me at that time, selling life insurance was below the garbage collecting job I had as a kid," Raeder said. But soon he was heading The Fund For Urban Negro Development, a Boston-based nonprofit that sought to correct racial injustice, and then running Boston's Aquarius Theater, now the Orpheum.

In 1975, he joined the Braille publisher. "The National Braille Press that exists now is the National Braille Press that Bill Raeder created," said Betty Levine, one of the nonprofit's trustees. "This man is admired by everyone."

Though Raeder officially retired Dec. 21, he agreed to stay on as a consultant until the press finds a new president - a task McLaughlin says is challenging.

When Raeder took over, said McLaughlin, "It was much more of a job shop back then, a physical plant where Braille books were printed," said McLaughlin. "Bill shaped its mission into that of a true publisher of Braille and a great advocate of Braille literacy."

And when it came to improving the way society deals with the blind, what better way to lead than by example? When he first hit Boston's streets with his cane in 1961, Raeder said it was so unusual for blind people to navigate the city alone that he could hear people stop in their tracks to watch.

"Now no one stops to watch me. My walking the streets over those 40 years in Boston - now going on 50 years - allowed Bostonians to see me and other blind people as capable of leading normal lives," said Raeder. "It's been a tough bridge to cross and we're still struggling for normalcy in society. We still don't have all the support mechanisms we need."

One of those support mechanisms is access to reading material; one of life's basics that Raeder said has been repeatedly threatened by technological advances and poor public policy.

Raeder said he was shocked to find when he first started working for the Braille press that none of the 44 blind schoolchildren then in the Boston public schools could read Braille. "I was told tape recordings were easier," he said. Steadily declining Braille literacy rates, Raeder said, followed "mainstreaming" efforts in the '60s that integrated blind children into general schools ill-equipped to meet their needs.

Though Massachusetts and other states passed laws in the 1980s requiring that Braille be made available in public schools, literacy rates continued to steadily drop, and the blind continued to fight for access to read information - not listen to it.

"When you listen to recordings, the machine actively emits sound, and you passively take in the information," said Raeder. "But when you read, whether with your eyes or your fingers, you actively seek the information. The pages don't turn themselves. It's a different cognitive process. There's nothing like reading."

It's an experience Raeder has not known for 40 years, despite much practice. His two remaining fingers never took to gliding over the salient dots of Braille books. "I never learned the stuff," said Raeder. "And I really envy those who can read."

Raeder's illiteracy makes him exceptional in the eyes of Steven M. Rothstein, president of Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown.

"National studies show that 80 percent of blind people literate in Braille are employed, compared with only 20 percent of those who are illiterate," said Rothstein. "Braille literacy is the single most important fact in determining a blind person's independence, productivity, and employment."

Rothstein said the National Braille Press is a critical source of reading materials for his students. "Bill's worked very hard to get more titles into Braille - whether popular books like "Harry Potter," or textbooks, or books written specifically for the blind audience," said Rothstein.

While the press continues to fire off Braille books ranging from George Foreman cookbooks to a blind children's guide to magic tricks, Raeder is brainstorming how to spend his free time.

He wants to take some courses at his alma mater, Boston University and use a skydiving gift certificate his staff gave him as a goodbye gift. He's constantly adding to a list of places to visit.

"I'll probably see Machu Picchu and Cuzco in the fall," said Raeder. "And then there's always France. Can you believe I've never seen Paris?"