"I got a woman / Way ...

[Wilson Gray]

_over town_"

as Ray Charles sang.

It's the case that _over town_, which I otherwise know only from Ray
Charles's song, is common among local speakers here in the towns along
the banks of the Susquehanna in the Wyoming Valley, with reference to
going across the river uptown (north) to "The City Square" in
Wilkes-Barre, the primary local shopping district. My wife, who never
used this phrase in Boston, uses it all the time, now that she's back
home.

I *still* have no idea what, exactly, Ray Charles had in mind, when he
used "(way) _over town_."

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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