Doc Gurley

Doc Gurley waved a loving farewell to the wee Zipster this week. She’s been working through her sadness using art therapy. Her kids found her covered in red paint, wiping her cheeks at the kitchen table. She’ll pull out of it soon (or run out of pastels first). Help Doc Gurley move [...]

Zippy knew Doc Gurley had something special in store for him for his last day with her, but he wasn’t sure what. When she woke him and told Zippy the two of them were going to hit the road, he got a bit panicky and wouldn’t come out of his tent. Doc Gurley had to explain that “hitting the road” had nothing to do with trauma, but was a classic California experience – a day driving to see the glorious sights of the Bay Area.

Zippy had his eyes glued to the windshield. Everything was so beautiful. There was water everywhere. He knew there would be bridges, he just never realized how many. What surprised him the most was all the tunnels. You can’t get hardly anywhere without zipping (so to speak) through a tunnel. Don’t go toward the light, Zippy!

But on the other side of the tunnel was another classic Bay Area experience – fog. So what could be so important here? Continue reading Zippy Hits The Road!

Zippy knew there was one place he really wanted to visit while he was here in the Bay Area – the Children’s Hospital of Oakland. Lots of kids get superb treatment here for all kinds of problems, especially the problems closest to Zippy’s heart – kids with brain tumors. Oakland Children’s Hospital takes care of all kids, whether they can pay or not.

Here is Zippy at the Family home. This is where families can stay to be close to their kids in the hospital.

Continue reading Zippy Goes To Oakland

Zippy got down with the beat at the famous Lafayette Summer Music Jazz Workshop for kids. Hundreds of kids came to the workshop from around the country, including New Orleans.

It made Zippy’s heart swing with the rhythm of happiness to see all these kids, learning, growing, and joyfully playing together. Here is Zippy on-stage, getting ready to count off the next combo set. There were 24 small groups of young musicians, showing off all they had learned in the five days of the workshop.

Zippy got a bit of cold feet when he met just a few the famous jazz musicians from across the country who were teaching in the workshop and as dedicated to kids as Zippy is – Wayne Wallace (whose latest CD just hit #1), Dan Pratt, Kristen Korb, and, of course, the heart, soul and leader of the whole jazz extravaganza, a person so phenomenal that Zippy just had to give him a hug…

Continue reading Zippy Gets Jazzed!

We bundled up Zippy for the San Francisco summertime chill and headed into the big city. Everyone knows, you can’t visit San Francisco without a trolley car ride. Here’s Zippy getting the (well-deserved) V.I.P. treatment. It takes a tough shell and a tender heart to do what Zippy does – travel off to unknown lands, talk to people he hasn’t met before about a cause he cares deeply about. It also takes persistence, which is why Zippy can be a force of nature sometimes (synthetic perhaps, but nature all the same). Zippy was amazed to learn that the trolley car is pulled up the steep San Francisco hills by a cable running under the street. To get the trolley going, the conductor clamps onto the thick cable whizzing past underground, then the trolley gives a little lurch, and off you go. Boy, it’s amazing how much strength it takes to clamp those levers down when it’s pulling a trolley full of people sitting and hanging off the sides. Zippy kept asking the conductor how he got his claws so strong. The conductor kindly flexed his gloved hand to show off a bit for Zippy. Impressive.

All aboard! Next stop, the Embarcadero!

Continue reading Zippy By The Bay!

City Hall in San Francisco is a place of power, fame, and politics. Although a lowly lobster might quake (as strongly as a 1906 shocker) at the idea of venturing into such powerful currents, Zippy knows no fear when it comes to advocating for his kids with brain tumors. So how far will a small magenta lobster go to get his message across? Just how much daring does Zippy have?

Continue reading Zippy Takes City Hall By Storm!

With Olympic frenzy in the air, Zippy had to check out the reason for all this aquatic fuss. Sure, the South may be football crazy (go dawgs), North Carolina may be basketball crazy (woo-hoo tarheels) but the Bay Area is definitely swim crazy. It just seems a little odd to a lobster, all this fuss about…doing the crawl? Combining his two favorite passions – children’s health and water – Zippy attended (grab some earplugs for the high-pitched squeals of joy) a kids’ swim meet. Zippy set out to recreate the Mike Phelps experience, here in the actual pool where a record for young boys was held by Matt Biondi – and where Natalie Coughlin is spotted by swim teams from time to time. Did Zippy make it off the starting block? Did he win his race? Did he go, afterward, all the way to China(town)? If you’re Mike Phelps, all we can say is, read it and weep – the bar has been set pretty high. Continue reading Zippy Olympic Fever