Tundra #3

It's a scientific fact that there are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra (which also occurs in Antarctica), and alpine tundra. From 1996 to 2002, I participated in a third kind of Tundra - a soccer game played in the ice and snow along Lake Michigan and right in the heart of downtown Chicago.

Playing soccer in temperatures below zero on top of fields filled with chunky, jagged ice or deep powdery snow definitely changes the dynamics of the game. Imagine running in parkas, ski pants and snow boots after a ball that doesn't roll in any predictable manner on snow and ice. Hence, we fittingly named our game "Tundra" and we played it every Tuesday night in downtown Chicago with Lake Michigan to our back and the beautiful skyline in front of us.

It was played by a fine group of men and women who just loved the game and needed an antidote to a bad case of cabin fever. There was a golden rule in Tundra: no one could ever ask "are we playing tonight?" No, that wasn't allowed because a true Tundra-ite didn't care about the weather, they only cared about the game. So if it was Tuesday, it was Tundra...period.

To get in the right frame of mind for Tundra game nights, I would crank the same CD while gearing up in my office. For all those years, it was always Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy". Why? Can't tell you, it just felt right. With its blend of long hypnotic songs like "No Quarter" to the forever funky "The Crunge" ("where's the confounded bridge?").

I mean really, is there a single song on this album from 1973 that doesn't groove you to the core? The song that probably best represents my memories of Tundra - the running through the snow, getting "checked" into a snow drift, or pushed on the ice and flattened - is "Over the Hills and Far Away". What a great song for so many years of great times playing a third kind of Tundra.

P.S. Phantom Elbow - this one's for you.