Jimmy van Blaricom
SexMale
Age56
 
Born10 July 1958inTucson, Pima County AZ (US)
Died3 October 2014inCarson City, NV (US)
FatherDon van Blaricom
MotherJoan
BrotherGordon
SisterVicky
Notes

Shining Example of Working Man
'The Shoeshine Guy' of Santa Ana starts his days at 7 a.m., ready to 'make shoes smile.'
August 23, 2004|Claire Luna | Times Staff Writer
It seems the ideal location for a shoeshine stand: across the street from Orange County's main courthouse, within spitting distance of legions of loafers that have lost their luster. A crosswalk leads right into the wooden shack Jimmy Van Blaricom built with a handsaw and hammer 15 years ago for someone else; he took over soon after. With no assistants, he shines every shoe himself for customers looking for the clothed-foot equivalent of a pedicure. For $5, men and the very occasional woman plop themselves on the cushy plastic-sheathed blue seats and set their feet on the metal plates. Van Blaricom then kneels before his customers wielding a tin of polish, a thin piece of cloth and a rusting coffee can filled with saddle soap. Polish blackens his fingers as he works, his yellow T-shirt and black jeans hugging his gaunt frame. "I make shoes smile," he says as another customer walks away, his black oxfords gleaming in the summer sun.
Then starts another of Van Blaricom's seemingly interminable breaks in a nine-hour day that starts at 6:30 a.m., when he begins his half-hour bike ride from a cheap motel to the courthouse. He's dubbed himself "The Shoeshine Guy," but more often than not he's "The Newspaper-Reading Guy" or "The Guy Who Smokes a Lot."
You see, that ideal location isn't really that great. When the family-law attorneys took their business to the newly built Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange in 1992, Van Blaricom said, his weekly sales plunged from $600 to $300. The ebbing stream of customers means Van Blaricom has a lot of time for himself. When he's not reading newspapers, he's puttering around his shack.
The burgundy structure is painted to coordinate with the brick office building in the same parking lot, per the lot owner's wishes. But Van Blaricom dreams of coating the place in red, white and blue, or at least planting a bunch of American flags around it. For now, he keeps a drill and some other tools on hand, moving around the lattices at the back of the stand and retraining some of the ivy that shrouds it and is starting to tickle the backs of customers' heads. He likes to add whimsical touches, such as the happy-face sticker plastered to the middle of a clock facing his customers and a miniature version of his stand constructed with balsa wood and toothpicks.
Standing by his newspapers is a stuffed animal named Underdog, a cartoon superhero from the 1960s whose alter ego was -- take a wild guess here -- a humble, lovable shoeshine boy. Underdog drew his power from popping energy pills, but Van Blaricom's drug of choice is his customers. When they duck their head to enter the shack, he swings into action.
One summer morning, Anthony Callari broke three hours of do-nothing monotony for the stand's owner when he stopped by after seeing his brother graduate from a drug-court program. When Callari sat down, his black lace-up shoes were scuffed and dull. He hadn't had time to shine them himself for a while, he said, and it wasn't until he put them on that morning that he realized how bad they looked. "They're kind of embarrassing," he said, wincing. But when the 27-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita man stood up five minutes later, his shoes sparkled. The visit from Callari was the start of a busy half-hour for Van Blaricom. Next up was a tall man in a gray suit who spent his shoeshine yammering on his cellphone. Next was county employee Mark Finley, 54, whose brown shoes didn't look so bad -- until he explained that underneath the dust and grime was a pair of black oxfords. Construction at the auditor's home had made his shoes filthy, he said, and finally he had found a day in which he could spare his lunch break to get them cleaned. Years ago he had a job that required a lot of travel, he explained, wistfully recalling time spent in shoeshine chairs at airports and fine hotels.
The best shines, customers agreed, are in Las Vegas. But the Santa Ana stand helps maintain their look in the meantime. "Shoeshine guys are just not easy to find," said Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce official John Crippen, who happened to be passing by that balmy summer morning. As soft pop wafted from a radio on a high shelf inside the stand, Crippen stared down at his black tasseled loafers as Van Blaricom bustled around them. With his office just a few blocks away, Crippen said, he'd seen the stand "a couple hundred times" and always wanted to stop by. A glance at his shoes in the morning convinced him that that day was the day. "It's a dying trade," Crippen said, rattling off half a dozen now-defunct places he used to go for a shine.
Van Blaricom knows it. Society doesn't look too well on those who shine shoes, he said, assuming they're "about one step higher than a homeless guy on the street." For him, finding a protege is about as likely as paying the stand's rent on time. His 19-year-old son is "too good" to shine shoes, Van Blaricom says gruffly, his pursed lips making his scruffy beard tighten. He's not sure what will happen to the stand when he's gone. Until then, the wooden shack anchors his days. As long as it draws shoes, he said, he'll be there every morning at 7, his blue eyes studying the busy street as he waits for the next pair to come his way.

Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2004


ObituaryVan Blaricom, Jimmy aka "The Shoe Shine Guy"
Jimmy was born on July 10, 1958 in Tucson, AZ and passed away on October 3, 2014 of cancer.
Jimmy grew up in various places in the US, and also lived in Guam and Morocco. He was known in Orange County as "The Shoe Shine Guy". In 1991, he had built a shoeshine stand for a man in Santa Ana and took over shortly after. For years he was working there, making shoes smile. In 2012 he moved to the desert, then to Dayton, NV to take care of his mom. He passed away in Carson City. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
He is survived by his son, Don; his brother, Gordon; his sister, Vicky; his mother, Joan; and his father, Don.

Orange County Register, March 20, 2015

Marriage 14 February 1980 
withSusan Ann Parmelee
Born19 December 1960inBakersfield, Kern County CA (US)
Died26 February 2022 
Divorced1992 
Children Donald Alan born 1984
ObituarySusan Ann Van Blaricom of San Antonio, TX passed into eternal life to be with the lord on Saturday, February 26, 2022. She was 61 years old.
Susan was born to Stuart Wayne Parmelee and Janice Rose Olson on December 19, 1960 in the city of Bakersfield, CA. As a child, she and her family moved all over the state due to her father's career. Finally, during her senior year of high school they settled in Santa Ana, which is a city 33 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
After graduating from Huntington Beach High School, she joined the military and went to Oklahoma. In boot camp she met Jimmy Van Blaricom. She didn't stay in boot camp very long and returned to her home in California. Jimmy soon followed and they were married on Valentine's Day February 14, 1980. Four year later they bore a son, Donald, which was one of happiest days of her life.
However married life was, as rocky as her childhood, moving from place-to-place. They also struggled with financial challenges. In fact, things weren't going so well between the two of them, and they separated in 1992.
After many years of another disappointing relationship, she met Mark Perron, who was the love of her life. They both worked as reservation sales agents for Marriott Hotels. She excelled in her work. She booked lots of rooms and won awards. She won Associate of the Year for 2005 and went to Washington, D.C., taking Donald along with her. There she had the pleasant surprise of becoming the associate of all the reservation centers in the world. In 2007, the center they were working at was going to close. They had a choice of moving to another center at another city in the US. After some consideration they decided to move to the one in San Antonio. A couple of months later in April, they moved.
San Antonio was where Susan spent the happiest years of her life. She met lots of friends, spent her sweet time at home reading, doing puzzles, and watching TV and movies in her "cozies" after work every night. She also took park walks and loved seeing the deer, as well as the barn swallows that came every spring to the apartment building they were living at.
Finally after many years of working for the Marriott, she decided to quit in 2018. She spent the rest of her life doing what she loved to do. She loved Disney, classic movies, and music of all genres. She was a humble Christian and always brought happiness and sunshine with her to everyone she met. She will be dearly missed by all her family and friends and will forever remain in our hearts.
She is preceded in death by her parents. She is survived by her beloved son, Donald Alan Van Blaricom; and her beloved boyfriend, Mark Perron.
Messages of remembrance may be left at: susan-ann-vanblaricom.forevermissed.com
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Cancer Society "In memory of Susan Van Blaricom."

Express-News, March 29, 2022



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