I don’t know why, but I’ve had about half of a movie or TV quote running through my head today. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like:
“I’m going to head [insert direction] and settle down in the first town that hasn’t heard of [insert thing speaker doesn’t like.]”
Anyone?
The version I’ve usually heard was some retiring sailor saying he was going to take an anchor with him and keep walking until somebody asked “what’s that?”.
Like Little Nemo, I remember a story about a sailor walking in-land, but I heard it wwith an oar. I remember it from elementary school lesson on folk tales (Paul Bunyan, etc.). Even at the time I thought, “well they will still have rivers and ponds, so of course they know what an oar is.”
It’s a fable called the Sailor and the Oar, with the sailor usually being St. Elias, although I think I’ve heard it was Ulysses as well.
As I recall it, when a sailor is tired of this life at sea, he can throw an oar over his shoulder and begin walking. When he reaches a town where someone asks “What’s that?” he can rest, knowing he’s reached Fiddler’s Green. Off to wiki to check.
Here you go: Fiddler's Green - Wikipedia
You got it. When Odysseus visits Tiresias in the Underworld he is told that after his return to Ithaka he must carry an oar until he finds a place where it is not recognised and they do not know sea salt. To the Greeks’ minds this meant for ever, as their lives were so tied to the sea.
And this is all mentioned in drillrod’s link above, but I’ll post anyway!
Also this doesn’t really answer the OP. As we have seen this idea recurs a lot and probably was in one or several movies / Tv shows in some form. Homer started it, though, at least formally.
Ahhh, ok thanks. So I probably heard someone saying something similar in several stories, episodes, whatever.
Funny, mouseover preview doesn’t show the brackets or what’s inside them in the OP.
My father likes to sing this song, but I have no idea where he learned it:
I’m walking inland from the shore
Over my shoulder carrying an oar
And when someone asks me what
Is the funny thing I’ve got
I know I’ll never go to sea no more, no more
I know I’ll never go to sea no more.
He was singing it just the other day to his granddaughter. Must ask him where he heard it.
Tiresias told Odysseus to walk inland carrying an oar. When someone mistook it for an oddly-shaped shovel, he was to make a sacrifice to Posiedon on that spot, thus carrying the sea-god’s power to a place that had never known the sea.
Heh, Garrison Keillor once told a story about a Minnesotan tired of winter. He got in his car and drove south until someone asked him why there was an electrical plug hanging out of his front grille. And now I know where GK adapted the story from. 
*** Ponder
You know what I’m doin’ when this is over? I’m puttin’ into port, I’m gettin’ off the ship, I’m puttin’ an oar on my shoulder, and I’m startin’ inland, and the first time a guy says to me: “What’s that on your shoulder?” that’s where I’m settlin’ for the rest of my life.
– “Boats” O’ Hara, Action in the North Atlantic
Took me some looking to find the source, too… and some help from a friend!
It was in “Red Sky at Morning” during WWII; the main character’s father was in the Navy and he bought property in the mountains of New Mexico where he sent his teen aged son and wife to live out the war in safety. This was his explanation