My first dream was to join the Cub Scouts at age 8, which allowed me to join the Sea Scouts. From there, I joined the British Merchant Navy and was around the world (both ways) by the time I was 18. While at sea, the map of the world was on the bulkhead stationary as the ship rolled around it. Then I wondered what had not been done, and the answer came back THE AMERICAS.

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I was unfit, being with terrible acne on my shoulders such that I was a bloody mess within 4-hours. This led me to whist at Brigham & Cowan shipyard, where they built me two carts, which I took to Tierra del Fuego, along with a girlfriend.

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From John Taylor Gatto: George Meegan was twenty-five years old and an elementary school dropout, a British merchant seaman when he decided to take the longest walk in human history, without any special equipment, foundation bankroll, or backing of any kind. Leaving his ship in South America he made his way to Tierra del Fuego alone and just began to walk. Seven years later after crossing the Andes, making his way through the trackless Darien Gap, and after taking a long detour on foot to see Washington, D.C., he arrived at the Arctic Ocean with a wife he met and married along the way, and their two children. In that instant, part of the high academic story of human migrations received its death blow from a dropout. His book, The Longest Walk, was first published in 1982. And now Democracy Reaches the Kids! is a testament to George's mission and destiny in life to retool, rekindle the joy of learning in all the children in all the cultures of the world. To preserve and flower those vast treasures.