Shoeshine man Daniel “Danny” Vincent Vallegos, who died Jan. 19 at the age of 58, knew countless downtown Denver executives, janitors and cubicle-dwelling worker bees. He tossed quips and cheery greetings with the abandon of a glad-handing politician.
Despite his weathered face and shoulders rounded from decades of hunching over loafers, oxfords and high heels, Vallegos seemed perpetually upbeat and animated. His gleeful deference provoked smiles from all but the most saturnine suits.
Loyal customers followed him the way clients trail after a talented but flighty hairstylist flitting from one salon to the next.
They followed Vallegos from Shoe Biz in the Republic Plaza to the state Capitol building, from a 16th Street Mall kiosk to the Denver Post Tower and back to Republic Plaza.
For work, he wore a pair of bright white sneakers, a red apron tied over slacks or jeans, and a signature hat sagging under the weight of colorful pins. Sometimes the hat appeared more substantial than the wizened, stooped man underneath it.
Most of the pins were gifts from customers who found them on business trips and vacations. He particularly cherished a tiny reproduction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers.
At his Spit-N-Image shoeshine stand, he charged between $3 and $4, knowing that pleased customers would tell him to keep the change when they handed him a $5.
The difference between the first shoe he polished and its mate-in-waiting was dramatic, as daughter Sunny Vialpando found when her father gave her a free shine, but finished only one of her shoes.
“He shone one, and that was it, maybe so I could see the difference,” she speculated. “I don’t know why he did that. I kept looking at my feet all day.”
Even people who wore only sneakers and sandals looked around for Vallegos in his red apron when they entered the building. His absences provoked dismay and comment from building denizens who came to rely on his buoyant presence.
“All these people downtown are telling us how much they loved my dad,” Vialpando said. “And I understand why. He was happy, and he always had a joke, and a line to make you laugh.
“But it was different for his family. Papa was a rolling stone. It just seems like I was trying to find him my whole life.”
Vallegos was 7 and the eldest of four children when his mother died. His father built him a shoebox and showed him how to shine shoes professionally.
By age 9, Danny Vallegos was earning $15 to $20 a day, shining shoes for customers he coaxed with a winning smile. Instead of candy and comic books, his revenue went to feed himself and his siblings. Food and supervision were scarce at home.
As a teenager, he got into enough trouble to draw a berth at a juvenile residential facility in Golden. Before his 20th birthday, he became a father to the first of eight children born to different women.
Vallegos tended to orbit his children’s lives rather than provide a stable center. One daughter, Danielle, born about 30 years ago, virtually disappeared after being adopted by another family. Her siblings are still searching for her.
Vallegos endured a long battle with alcoholism. He worked odd jobs, most consistently as a shoeshine man. He spent one period as a sort of corpse delivery service, hired to pick up the newly deceased from nursing homes, hospitals and other venues, and take them to designated mortuaries. His children still snicker at the memory of the time Vallegos absent-mindedly drove a body to the wrong city.
He finally cut himself off from the hooch and began pursuing a dream of running his own shoeshine business. The venture represented the apex of his career, providing him with a job flexible enough to accommodate impromptu gambling trips to the slots in Central City.
His relationship with his children remained emotionally complicated. Arguments often resulted in months without an exchange of words.
“I kind of asked him once why he was the way he was,” Sunny Vialpando said. “He said he thought he did the best he could do. He didn’t know any other way to be. He wouldn’t take care of people if he didn’t take care of himself.”
Survivors include father Dan Vallegos of Denver; daughters Sunny Vialpando and Cheyenne Vallegos, both of Denver, and Terri Williams of Aurora; sons Daniel Aaron Vallegos and Jesse Quintia, both of Northglenn, and Michael Quintia of Fort Logan; 11 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. One daughter preceded him in death.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
