For 140 years Woodville grew alongside a branch line of the Georgia Railroad, running from Athens to Union Point, the tracks first laid in 1839. Just up the line is Maxeys, Stephens, Crawford a few miles beyond. All enjoyed a prosperity based on agriculture, especially cotton and, like many rural towns in the South, this prosperity crashed with the arrival of the boll weevil in the 1920s. For many rural Georgia counties the population reached its peak in the 20’s, falling each decade thereafter. The rails were pulled up in the 1980s.
The first time I came through Woodville was in 1972 or ’73 on a motorcycle ride through Oglethorpe and Greene counties. It’s pretty countryside, quiet roads, old fields long grown over in pine and hardwood. I stopped at a cross roads store, switched off the engine, and pulled the bike up on the kickstand. Half a dozen men were sitting around under the shed roof out front. I nodded. They nodded back in polite inspection of a stranger on a motorcycle.
The proprietor looked up as I walked in, “Well good morning to you,” he says, “Never seen you before. Welcome to Woodville. What’ll you have?” I got a can of Vienna sausage, a pack of saltines, and a coke. “First time in Woodville,” I told him, “Out for ride and thought I’d get a bite to eat.” “That’s you on the bike then,” he said. “Nice bike.” We talked for a few minutes about motorcycles and country stores. He told me which road went where. “You might ride over to Penfield,” he suggested, “interesting place. Mercer College used to be in Penfield, back before the Civil War. Couple of the old buildings are still standing.” I thanked him and turned to walk back out to my bike. There was a picnic table across the road under some trees. “Don’t let them old men out front rob you,” he laughed. “Somebody pulls up on a motorcycle gives them something to talk about.”
I gave them something to talk about. “Gentlemen,” I said as I walked past the group. “Be careful,” one said, “Don’t let that thing throw you.” They watched as I threw a leg over the seat and sat the sausage, saltines, and coke between my legs, and pushed forward off the kickstand. Studied casual. In the conceit of the young, I imagined that they envied me, riding off on a motorcycle, probably admired the bike, and very possibly me as well for looking so cool.
I put on my helmet, reached down and turned the key, pushed the ignition button to start the bike. Start it did. Unfortunately, I had neglected to put it in neutral when I had cut it off and when I hit the ignition the bike started in first gear, lurching suddenly forward. The coke, crackers, and the tin of Vienna sausage flipped off the seat and hit the dirt, the can of sausage rolling under the rear tire as the bike rolled forward, putting enough pressure on the can to pop open the lid with sufficient force to send seven Vienna sausage in a low parabolic arc, falling in the gravel a few feet away.
Half a dozen pair of eyes observed this exercise. Nobody speaks. Mortified does not begin to describe my embarrassment. But I couldn’t just ride off as if nothing had happened. That would compound my embarrassment, even make me look a little cowardly. I sat on the seat for a minute, gathered my courage, took off my helmet, and walked back to the store to get another can of sausage. They eyed me quietly as I walked up until one tilted his cap back a little and spoke, “That’s a right smart way to open a can of Vienna sausage, son,” he said, “Now, if you can just manage to catch them before they hit the dirt you got something.” Ice broken. That was too funny not to laugh. I got another can of sausage, more crackers, and a clean can of coke and sat down with them to eat.
When I left I took the road to Penfield. In the 1940s the road had been dirt. A. L. Cantrell ran a gas station and garage there back then. Next to his garage was a post office and a brick store of some size selling farm supplies, clothes, shoes, groceries, and sundries. Penfield had been a busy place, a social and commercial center for farms in the area. Across the road were all that remained of old Mercer, a fine brick Greek Revival chapel and a science building. Founded as a boy’s school in 1833, chartered a university a few years later, the college graduated its first class, three students, in 1841. The little community grew after the founding of the college, adding a bank, print shop, cotton warehouses, the Penfield Female Seminary. In 1870 Mercer moved to Macon.
The Mercer chapel and the science building were still standing when I first visited. The science building burned in 1977. A little grocery store was operating in what had been Cantrell’s gas station back in the 40’s. Finding a working store was unusual, given a local population of just a few families and farms gone back to woods. The shelves offered a limited stock, bread, canned meat and vegetables, a cooler for soft drinks, milk and bacon, a rack of crackers, a little candy, and on the counter a glass jar with licorice, not the licorice twist candy, but sticks of authentic black licorice. This was a surprise. “Where do you get the licorice,” I asked the man behind the counter. “Same as the rest of the stock” he said. “Truck comes through about once a week, stocks the store over in Woodville too.”
Then I looked at the fellow and wondered where he came from. He didn’t look local. He appeared to be in his forties, dark slacks, shined shoes, an ironed white shirt, dark hair combed straight back from his forehead. Features sharp as an ax. This was a contrast to the khaki and flannel shirts of most country store operators. He looked how I imagined a serious poker player might look, a man with fast hands who traveled often and light. He maintained a blank expression and watched me without turning his head. He had probably sized me up the moment I walked into the store.
“You don’t look local,” I said. “Not from around here,” he replied, voice flat. “Been here long,” I asked? “Few months.” I said that I was a little surprised to find a store open in such a quiet place. “Fellow over in Greensboro owns it. Needed somebody to run it.” Pleasant without being talkative, I learned that he lived in a room in back. “All I need to stay a spell,” was his assessment of his situation. I did not learn his name. Don’t know where he came from. He was gone when next I went through. The store closed up. Looking through the window then to empty shelves, a few scraps of paper on the floor, and dust. It looked as though it had been closed for years, not just a few weeks.
The folks at the store over in Woodville were surprised when the Penfield store opened but not surprised when it closed. “It had been closed for years when this fellow opened it up. It wasn’t his. He just ran it.” Another didn’t see how it had enough trade to be worth it. “Hardly anybody lives in Penfield. Not much traffic through there.” Sitting on a cross roads, Woodville was busier than Penfield, the store had more traffic, more stock, more customers, plus they sold gas. Several of the regulars were sitting under the overhang in front of the store when I rode through a few weeks later. They didn’t know anything about what might have happened to the man who worked the store.
A light rain started to fall when I pulled up, the sun still showing above the trees, the photographer’s golden hour, a rainbow on the horizon. “I heard the fellow was from Augusta. Quiet. Not unfriendly, just quiet. That’s what some have said.” We sat on the bench beside the door watching the rain splash on the pavement. “This will be good for the corn,” one remarked, “enough to wet the soil but not so much it’ll wash.” The rain stopped, leaving the air fresh and green. I got up to leave. “Grab some of those paper towels and dry your seat,” one said. I wiped down the seat and handlebars. “A good evening gentlemen. Luck with that corn.” The tires hissed on the wet asphalt as I picked up speed, forgetting all about the Penfield mystery man. “Never knew much about the fellow,” they said. “Came and went. Store closed. End of story.”
Georgia Stories and Songs 
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