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'Single Dip’Roy gets his day at Whitey's

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By Bill Wundram | Wednesday, October 24, 2007 1:01 AM CDT | () comments

THIS is a scoop I’d rather write than eat!

At 3 this afternoon, as he does every afternoon, Roy Harrington of Moline will step up to the counter at Whitey’s on 41st Street in Moline. He will not have to place his order. Rhonda or Lindsey will know that Roy wants only one thing — a single dip cake cone. Nothing else but a single dip cake cone will do.

It will be the 15th year that he has come to the counter every afternoon for a single dip. That comes to about 5,250 ice cream cones. If the weather is good, Roy will walk three-quarters of a mile from his home across Moline High School’s athletic fields. If the weather is bad, he will drive.

Tuesday was Roy’s 82nd birthday, so the scoopers put on a little extra of his favorite flavor, mint chocolate chip, and management decided it was time to celebrate “Roy Day,” which will be Friday.

“I think Roy holds the world’s sweetest record,” says Jeff Tunberg, of the Tunberg brothers (the other is Jon) who own the network of Whitey’s ice cream stores.

Today — as is his ritual — Roy will lick the drippy edges of the mint chocolate chip, and then nibble every single crumble of the cake cone until nothing is left. “You can’t help but smile when you eat an ice cream cone,” he says.

Roy is convinced that an ice cream cone a day keeps his body and psyche healthy. “My cholesterol rating is excellent; my health is good. I walk a lot, which helps, but I think that ice cream does the trick.”

Roy remembers beginning his daily trips to get a cone when the 41st Street Whitey’s store adjoined the ice cream factory. Now, the retail store is just south of the factory, and through the 15 years he has come to know all the servers, rattling off names like Sarah, Madonna, Ann, Rhonda and about a dozen others.

“We all know Roy. He is as timely as clockwork to come in at 3 to get his single dip cone,” says Lindsey Freburg, one of the servers.

Roy interrupts to tell a story: “A year ago my wife Dorose and I were dining at a restaurant with a group of our church leaders. A server and I had been eyeing each other, wondering how we had known each other. She suddenly backed away from me and shouted, ‘I know you. You are ‘Single Dip.’ I felt like a member of the Mafia whose cover had been blown.”

Whitey’s has 18 flavors on its board, and he mostly sticks to mint chocolate chip. “My other favorites are Mississippi Mud, White Chocolate Raspberry and Tiger Paws. I have tasted but never ordered bubble gum. I didn’t like Smurf.”

Roy is a retired engineer from Deere & Co. and holds 21 patents. “I’m pretty well known in the agriculture world, but at Whitey’s, I’m known as Single Dip. I never miss a day, unless I’m out of town,” he says.

On Friday’s “Roy Day,” he’ll be at the store at 2525 41st St. from 2 to 4 p.m. to shake hands, eat his single dip cone exactly at 3, and hand out discount coupons for ice cream. The other 10 Quad-City Whitey’s will be offering single dip cone discounts during the same hours.

“He is special, not for us but for the whole ice cream industry,” Jeff says. “The only way to honor him is with single dips.”

Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.