A historical organization in Danville recently sponsored a “steampunk-Halloween” fundraiser in the old Danville train station building of the Danville Science Center, an excellent choice, as steam once played a big part there (even the old, elaborately-decorated inactive steam radiators remain). Whenever the Norfolk&Western 611 goes chugging by, steam is once again featured; the rest of the time it’s “dieselpunk.”

I was working there when members started decorating the lobby, including a plate containing a faux plastic bloody hand (fake blood, too). I took this to be decoration instead of hors d’oeuvres, since the theme of the evening was faux horror instead of the real thing.

In the same vein (no pun), someone brought a box of artificial flowers with the central flower parts replaced with artificial eyeballs. They looked strange, but not much stranger than a pyramid with an eyeball having George Washington’s “back” (dollar bill).

If those “eyeball” flowers had been put in a lidded Victorian box, they might have resembled what Phil Harris sang about in his 1950 record, “The Thing,” (excerpt:”Get outta here with that BUMP-BA-BUMP, and don’t come back no more!!!!!).

If these flowers had been the ones which “last in the courtyard bloomed,” they would have given that scene a different “look.”

A faux, lifesize human skeleton was placed on one of the 118-year-old Amtrak benches. It looked as if the wait for the train had been a long one. Someone fixed the mouth open, calling it a scream (like the old cult film “The Screaming Skull” (1958) and Edvard Munch’s art (although the room didn’t “reverberate”). Another person said it was a laugh (but it takes “fleshing out” to know exactly which).

Wine and beer were brought in to keep the event stocked. Along with “steampunk,” perhaps a few partygoers might get “steamed” (not the “angry” kind).

Tables were set with tablecloths and “Poe-esque” items, especially ravens, the “costume” kind, nothing “purloined” from the museum’s taxidermied collection.

One “trick” family portrait included a little boy. When seen from a different angle, the boy’s face morphed into the face of the devil himself (nothing unusual for little boys).

At five o’clock, I said goodbye to the steampunk decorators and wished them a good party. I said goodnight to the live animals there to whom I attend, wondering that if in the morning, I might find the turtle, iguana, and snake “steampunked” by the addition of gears and wheels, glued to them by overzealous “Victorian” revelers.

Checking Facebook that evening, I watched a video posted by those “steampunkers.” As far as their costumes are concerned, I’ll never look at Goodwill the same again! (Goodwill, the closest thing to “Victorian.”)

The following morning, I noticed a scattering of golden glitter on the station steps. Steam, especially the railroad kind, leaves coal smoke and cinders in its wake, while steampunk evidently leaves glitter.

Inside, the eyeball-flowers, spiderwebs, bloody hand, gears and goggles were gone. There was a “vintage” paperboy hat in the station office, but that was left by an Amtrak passenger years ago.

A foil-wrapped balloon weight was left on a table; but it was much too small for ballast for that “Around the World in 80 Days” balloon, or the Graf Zeppelin.

I started wondering if Victorian revelers (the actual ones in the Victorian Era) ever dressed up in the fashion of the ages predating steam, perhaps also adopting the nomenclature of tools and weapons of those periods. Imagine “bronzepunk,” “ironpunk,” “stonepunk,” or “neolithicpunk,” “paleolithicpunk,” or “thefirstdayiteveroccurredtosomebodytorubtwostickstogetherpunk” (the computer’s red, squiggly line is going crazy beneath this one).

For real steampunk, actually, just steam, no punk, just attend the annual Southeast Old Steam Threshers Reunion in Denton. I want to think it was called the “Old Time Steam Threshers Reunion” (but maybe that’s just because I’m “old time”). You’ll see steam threshers, steam tractors, etc. chugging along, but not on rails.

Or just find out when the Norfolk & Western 611 will be appearing again on a rail near you, that “Rex” of a “dinosaur” from the days “when steam ruled the Earth!”