A walking, cheering, horn-honking, plant-waving phantom parade of bygone Bainbridge was once again gleefully resurrected Tuesday, May 15, as afternoon shoppers, unaware island visitors, and hurried lunch-seeking workers bore witness to the return of the legendary, much-whispered-about Scotch Broom Festival.

The annual “impromptu” springtime island tradition again took to Winslow Way at about 1 p.m., greeted by much waving and picture-snapping — and more than a few confused shrugs.

Following the traditional tiddlywinks match outside Town & Country Market, longtime islander Laurie Gallagher Maltman was crowned as the 2018 Scotch Broom Queen.

“It was such a thrill,” the queen, who had been on her way to lunch when she was chosen at random by festival officials to fill the regal role, said.

Though perhaps selected by chance, this year’s queen proved to have a royalty-worthy island pedigree.

“I went to high school here; I’ve been here for a long time,” she said. I’ve watched this parade a million times.”

Maltman, in fact, comes from something of a royal family: Her sister likewise was chosen to wear the crown years ago, while they were both in school.

As her first royal proclamation, this year’s queen said, “Everyone should pull out a Scotch broom today,” thus quelling the stranglehold of the invasive species.

The parade then took off from the market parking lot, moving at an appropriately regal pace, with plant-waving revelers in tow, in the direction of Madison Avenue.

Recent past queens include Erin Ayriss, Lara Lant, and Mickey Molnaire.

The festival is a quirky, idiosyncratic island tradition dating back to 1965, when Kiwanis member John Rudolph began the event as a joke.

Legend has it, Rudolph was contacted by somebody who was doing a guide book for the state, they were looking into all the different festivals and fairs around Washington, and in need of some additional material for the Bainbridge section.

Rudolph was happy to oblige.

He spun for the stranger a magical tale about a time-honored festival in which island residents observe a tiddlywinks match, crown a randomly chosen queen, and march through the downtown streets waving the region’s most iconic weed.

Of course, no such festival existed, but that was of no concern to the prankster at the time.

As remembered by 2015 Scotch Broom Queen — and wife of Ron Konzak, one of the event’s original co-founders — Molnaire: “Some months later, somebody showed up looking for the event. So, they decided they better do something [and] they threw together this parade.”

The festival is traditionally an underground event, shrouded in secrecy and governed by arcane laws, with minimal planning and no formal notification whatsoever.

Yet, psychic perhaps, those islanders most in the know always find themselves downtown in front of Town & Country with bunches of Scotch broom around 1 p.m. on the same day.