Silverton doesn't concern itself much with revenue from rhubarb. "It just grows wild here," says Bernard. "The plants are not for sale." But the town perhaps makes an even greater contribution with its 14-year-old Rhubarb Festival, staged annually on the Fourth of July—after the morning parade but before the evening fireworks. When the town's citizens first decided that they ought to host some kind of summer festival, says Halaburt, "It was either rhubarb or dandelions. And a dandelion festival, we all agreed, just didn't cut it." The highlight of the event is a cooking contest, which takes place in a small park with a rather majestic backdrop of mountains, their peaks grandly glazed with snow. Glance up, and you could almost imagine yourself standing in the middle of a giant Bundt cake.
  

Entries in the competition are nothing if not imaginative—at least if last year's batch was any indication. I tasted rhubarb spice cake, rhubarb suckers, rhubarb pie with coconut meringue, rhubarb-cherry pizza, rhubarb brown Betty, rhubarb-chile salsa, rhubarb flummery (a sweet, porridgelike dessert), rhubarb spaghetti sauce, and pork chops garnished with rhubarb chutney. It was all quite exotic—even if, to tell the truth, nothing tasted all that great. But, then, it didn't have to. Bernard, who had welcomed one and all by declaring "It really is the Fourth of July, and this really is America," gave certificates to contest winners, and commended all the entrants—as well she might have, since cooking anything properly at this altitude is a challenge.
  

The judging produced only one surprise: There was no "worst of show" award. In 1994, one contender bagged that prize for a libation that was half rhubarb purée and half Budweiser. This time, nothing came close to being that bad. Neither was there an award in the "industrial use" category, since there were no entries. Three years ago, however, a contestant thrilled the audience by playing "Yankee Doodle" on a hollow seed stalk of rhubarb that had been punched with holes like those on a flute.
  

While there is no Rhubarb Queen crowned at the festival, the morning parade offers pageantry aplenty. Participants last year included the American Legion, locals dressed as gunslingers, a bagpiper, a brass band, vintage cars, and horses. By doubling back on Greene Street after first marching up Blair—following a U-shaped route—the parade made itself seem longer than it was. It ended, as it has for at least the last 20 years, with a ritual soaking of the entire crowd by fire crews from Silverton and Hermosa Cliffs—the next fire district away—who turn their hoses on each other, splattering the crowd in the process. Not that anyone minds. "They got me," one octogenarian woman squealed in delight.
  

As much as I admired her pluck, I had even more respect for Jim Dyer's. Amid all these rhubarb fanatics, he openly admitted to hating rhubarb—except when used in the preparation of his favorite cocktail. Dyer, a member of the Colorado House of Representatives, who lives in Durango but also represents Silverton, offers the recipe as follows: "Pour a quart of vodka into a beaker, stir once with a rhubarb stalk, discard the stalk."