In light of recent events, I thought it appropriate to recall things that we used to do in the not so distant past. On this occasion I review a very common phenomenon that affected most of us, but that maybe some don’t totally miss.
Words are such fascinating things! Think how in many languages the same word can have two opposite meanings. We all know “shalom” can mean both hello and goodbye in Hebrew, as can the Hawaiian word “aloha.” Other words have started out with one meaning only over time morphing to mean the opposite. The subject of this essay is the word “commute,” which has traveled far from its original meaning to a point in the present where its origins have been nearly forgotten.
Most people today consider a “commute” or “commuter” to refer solely to one who goes back and forth regularly to work. That usage is actually rather recent and derives from a shortening of the term “commutation ticket,” which railroads offered at a reduced rate entitling the holder to travel over a given route a limited number of times or an unlimited number of times over a certain period. The irony is that in this usage commuting seems to refer to an unchanging trip that is repeated any number of times. Yet that was not at all the original meaning of the word commute; in fact, commute historically meant to alter or change (something into something else) or to transform altogether in the original Latin. So there you have it: commuting today refers most commonly to a predictable, repetitive journey from home to work and back again where the only thing being altered is where geographically the commuter is at any particular moment.
Commute has largely lost its original literal Latin meaning of transformation. Today if we want to refer to making a substitution we generally say it directly and don’t use the word commute to convey that meaning. Short of changing one prison sentence for another, we never hear “commute” except when referring to that familiar trip back and forth to work.
Finally, speaking of the common usage, it should be pointed out that there are some jobs that require a worker to commute from one workplace to another while on the job, when the employer has more than one work locale. In such circumstances, as will be seen from the following anecdote, sometimes the employee will use the oldest form of commuting to get to work. It happened that a local kosher pizza parlor owner once employed a teenage worker part time at one of his two stores in Teaneck. One day he instructed that worker, who was employed at his Cedar Lane store, to travel across town to his Plaza location on Queen Anne Road, a distance of at least two and a half miles. The young man promptly did as he was instructed. When the owner called the Plaza location 15 minutes later, he was surprised that the worker had not yet shown up.
“It takes 10 minutes max to drive from Cedar Lane. Where can he be?” he exclaimed.
When the worker showed up 20 minutes later, the owner was informed the young worker was only 16 years old, possessed no license or car, for that matter, and had used the oldest known method of commuting—foot power—to walk across town to get to the distant location.
On a grander scale, throughout history man has had a tendency to give frequently traveled roads or “commutes” catchy, descriptive names; think of the Sante Fe trail, the Chisholm trail and the Oregon trail. These roads were often named for their geographical terminus or their point of origin. Many pioneers traveled these roads in an effort to alter their lives and fortunes; not all survived the rigors of these trips. Other famous “commutes” involved mass movements of peoples of historical significance; even the exodus from Egypt undertaken by the tribes of Israel fits on many levels within the literal definition of a commute, overlooking the fact that the trip from Goshen to Canaan was sidetracked for 40 years in the desert.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, most of us in modern times engage in our conventional daily commutes with the full expectation that we will arrive safely, predictably, at our office or other place of work with little concern. That was the state of mind of one Jake Rabinowitz of Teaneck on one remarkable windy morning in early spring not too long ago. Jake had joined a carpool six months earlier with six other regular passengers. All six worked in Manhattan and rotated the driving responsibilities on a weekly schedule. On this day Jake was beginning his driving responsibilities by rising at 5:30 a.m., showering, dressing and praying; gulping down a light breakfast; and emerging at 6:15 a.m. to start his pickup route. A light fog was on the street as he turned out of his driveway, the black SUV easing onto Queen Anne Road in a northerly direction. When he reached his first scheduled stop, to his surprise, Meyer Schwartz was nowhere to be found. Jake didn’t want to honk his horn at that early hour, but after five minutes had elapsed, Jake headed for his second stop. There too the two friends he was to pick up were nowhere to be found. In fact, no one was where he was supposed to be that particular morning. At the last stop, Jake began to chuckle to himself as he checked out his cell phone and discovered it was Sunday. Jake realized that while he would have had an unpredictably rapid commute to work on that lovely spring day with notably light traffic, in the end it would have been better to have stayed in bed!
Joseph Rotenberg, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Link, has resided in Teaneck for over 45 years with his wife, Barbara. His first collection of short stories and essays, entitled “Timeless Travels: Tales of Mystery, Intrigue, Humor and Enchantment,” was published in 2018 by Gefen Books and is available online at Amazon.com. He is currently working on a follow-up volume of stories and essays.
