‘Superman of Upland’ hangs up cape after 10 years behind the bar

Tuesday, 75-year-old bartender Fred Risinger went to work at the Upland Brewpub on West 11th Street.

He mopped the floors, carried in ice, sliced oranges and removed stools from the tables where they had been placed the night before.

It seemed like any other day.

But by 5 p.m., there was a man on top of the bar, singing loudly with other customers who packed the restaurant.

Risinger was working the final shift of a retirement job he fell into and stayed with for the past 10 years — “Ten years I never imagined would be a part of my life,” he said.

Customers fought over who would get the final beer he poured.

The winner, K.C. Nielsen, was the man atop the bar, who led the crowd in a rendition of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Risinger poured Nielsen his usual — a Dragonfly India Pale Ale.

Nielsen and some of Risinger’s other regular customers lined the front seats of the bar, sharing memories.

“He’s not only a good bartender,” Nielsen said. “He’s a good friend.”

Bar manager Angela Schnick worked as a server when Risinger started bartending.

“He was part of the Upland family, even before he started working here,” Schnick said.

Besides serving at the brewpub, Schnick was in a graduate program at Indiana University. When schoolwork filled Schnick’s schedule, Risinger and his wife, Peggy, would bring her groceries.

“They were sort of my parents away from home for awhile — and they sort of still are,” she said.

Risinger grew up in Metropolis, Illinois (adopted hometown of Superman), which is why regular customer Steve Weller calls him the “Superman of Upland.”

At 15, he aspired to be a journalist and began working at a local radio station.

His real name is Charles Frederick Risinger, but it was in his teen years he started going by Fred (or, as he said on the radio, “Freddio your daddio at WMOK”).

Risinger started college at the University of Illinois in 1957, but left the same year to marry his first wife, Donna Kay, and raise the  first of his four children.

His dreams shifted to teaching history, and he eventually taught related courses at both the high school level in Illinois and then college level at Indiana University.

Risinger advocated for “new social studies,” or a framework of teaching social studies that uses issues to teach concepts (as opposed to simple memorization of the facts).

“You have to teach kids to how do stuff — how to write,” he said. “And that’s what I did.”

His methods seemed to stick — at one point he was granted a fellowship from the Social Science Education Consortium in Boulder, Colorado, to travel and study social studies education systems.

And on the side, Risinger published several history textbooks.

Even in his retirement job at Upland, Risinger didn’t stop teaching and learning.

“I love the talking about politics, local issues, what roads have the biggest potholes …”

And on his last day, Risinger passed around copies of an etymology of phrases used to describe poor people, sent to him by a high school valedictorian.

“It’s been a wonderful way to cap a professional life that I think was pretty successful,” he said.

Risinger said he now plans to go on a cruise with Peggy to study ancient Mayan culture in countries around the Caribbean.