Edition: U.S. / Global

ON THE JOB; Tales of Flying Cars and Trees

Published: May 28, 2000

Like most things in life, commuting is in the eye of the beholder. Most of the time, it's an obligation, a habit, no more than a repetitive journey from home to workplace and back again. But once in a while, commuting becomes high adventure, a source of laughter and the stuff of lasting memories.

''ONE day, my commuter train struck a car carrier, which had bottomed out on a grade crossing,'' writes David A. Katz, a geneticist who lives in Evanston, Ill. ''No one was injured, and the sight of a flying Acura was memorable.

''For the rest of the day, when asked by co-workers how I was doing, I opined that I felt like I had been in a train wreck. No one seemed to believe that I really had been in a train wreck. It was April 1.''

''It was the day after a hurricane had left much debris on the road,'' writes Dianne Olsen, recalling a morning when she was commuting in her tough old Saab through Westchester County, from her home in Pleasantville to her job as a marketing coordinator in Ossining. ''A pile of what I thought were twigs appeared in front of me,'' she writes.

''Well, it wasn't twigs. It was a big ol' tree branch, and it poked itself right through the front of my car,'' said Mrs. Olsen, who has since moved to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. ''I pulled off the road at the first opportunity and was so happy. The branch wasn't sticking into my radiator, just wedged beneath the headlight assembly. But I couldn't pull it out.

''So I drove the next mile to work, intending to call a garage and bring my car in for repair. People in the office kept remarking (I couldn't make this stuff up), 'Did you know you have a tree branch sticking out of your car?' It happened so often that I finally told everyone: 'Yes, and can you believe it? That tree just ran right out of the forest and attacked my car. I never saw it coming.' ''

During his years as a human resources executive in New York City, Ronald J. Rakowski, who lived in northern Fairfield County, Conn., sometimes commuted on the lightly traveled branch line to Danbury, which was near his home.

One snowy Friday night, ''the Danbury-bound train was struggling as it left the main New Haven line -- more than an hour late -- and headed north,'' Mr. Rakowski writes. ''Hearing that the train had lost one of its engines and that the remainder of the trip would be very slow, I headed for the bar car for a libation and a snack or two to soothe my growing hunger pangs.

''One of the regulars seemed to have enjoyed more than his share and was slumped against the bar with his head nestled comfortably atop his folded arms.''

From time to time, when the train halted to let passengers off, the snoozing regular would demand to know the name of the stop, then return his head to the comfort of his arms. At Branchville, he asked the usual question, and after being told, settled back in again.

''Unfortunately,'' writes Mr. Rakowski, ''there's an incline between the Branchville and Redding stations that the underpowered train couldn't conquer. So it slowly backed down to the station we had just left and jerked to a stop.''

Everyone in the car shouted, ''Branchville!''

The regular looked up, squinted and said, ''We must be going around in circles.'' Then he returned to his rest.

The engineer tried the Branchville-Redding incline again, the climb made harder by the icy conditions, and once more the train slipped back. All eyes were on the regular as the train halted at the same station for the third time. He lifted his head and asked.

''Branchville,'' came the reply.

He blinked, straightened up and grabbed his briefcase.

''Oh, thanks,'' he said as he staggered off. ''This is my stop.''

One morning last fall, on the way to her job as an occupational therapist at the Little Rock Veterans Administration Medical Center, Sarah V. Smith was driving along a rural road adjacent to the Arkansas River when a doe tried to soar over the roof of her car.

''She didn't make it, and as I jumped out to see if I could help her, I locked my keys in the ignition with the engine still running,'' Ms. Smith writes.

''The next oncoming vehicle stopped to offer assistance, and the first thing I could stammer was, 'Do you have a gun?' Now, I was thinking of putting the doe out of her agony, but the driver raised his eyebrows, looked scared and jumped back in his truck and went to call the police.

''The S.W.A.T. team -- one officer -- arrived with sunglasses and a rifle (at 7 a.m.), shot the deer, and since I had no need of the meat, had me wait in the patrol car while he called for backup to pick up the carcass and bring a tool to open my locked door.

The wait was spent looking over the officer's shoulder as he used the on-board computer to solicit recipes for venison. I saw venison chili, crockpot venison, venison sausage and deer kabobs offered for the latest road kill.

The officer kindly called my office, but as usual the communication was garbled, and by the time I arrived, only two hours late, my colleagues had me crashed and dead by gunfire or animals.''

Perhaps the last word on commuting should be left to Ralph Slovenko, a professor of law and psychiatry at Wayne State University in Detroit.

''John Butcher, a member of the British Parliament, has come up with an interesting proposal,'' he writes. ''He has urged his government to allow jugglers and acrobats to perform on the highways to soothe the jangled nerves of motorists.

''With traffic moving so slowly, there's hardly the possibility that an acrobat could be killed.''

Drawing (Stuart Goldenberg)