Story of Zippy

And a bit about Dart --
Several years ago our neighborhood had a major problem with feral cats.  A drug house down the block was shut down which had MANY cats living in the walls.  The house really had been inhabitable; it was what is referred to as a Flop House.  After many arrests the remaining 'occupants' disappeared.  The cats ended up completely abandoned and began roaming farther, scavaging more for survival.  I aquired a live trap and began catching cats. The orignial thought was that I would 'find them homes', being very naive about how hard that was and how very many cats there were.  I was able to find a few homes, several others we ended up bringing to the Humane Society and letting them do the job they are so very good at.  Zippy and Dart ended up staying with us forever.
After catching a cat in the live trap, we transferred it to a crate for a few days to become used to humans at least being present.  The day we decided to let Zippy out of the crate for the first time we were on the back porch to have a fairly small space.  Zippy remained hunkered down in the back corner of the crate very quiet as I popped the door open.  He stayed there as I slowly opened it.  Never moved a muscle as we stood and spoke to him quietly.  Then he was not in the crate anymore -- it took a few seconds to even comprehend that he had moved.  But he was now on the ceiling.  There is a small trim board at the top of the wall and Zippy had literally flown from the crate gripped the board, barely the width of one paw and by sheer momentum he managed to circle the entire porch on that board above our heads before dropping to floor.  Zippy eventually became a very affectionate lap kitty, but he kept his name from that first day.
Zippy is a very ugly kitty.  He has major allergies that took us years to finally completely identify.  In the meantime there were times that he bled from every pore of his body, developed large open wounds, and bouts of diarhea and vomiting.  His mother and siblings were all pretty things with a unique pinched up face that we were sure would be able to be adopted and we took them to the Humane Society.  But we kept Zippy.
Zippy is essentially an indoor kitty.  But he does remember his feral roots especially in the spring.  He has been known to sneak out the door -- and take down a squirrel.  It took him several hours, but he never let go and eventually he won.
He is very cold natured- especially when he is having an allergic reaction to something and very much prefers laying on a  human or another cat.  He has a loud irregular pur -- sort of misses a cylinder -- but for him it is perfect.