New Jersey Stage March 2015 | Page 11

Waters has not only had several best selling books, but his last (Carsick) was basically pitched in just one or two sentences. His publisher jumped at the concept of a 66-year-old celebrity hitchhiking across the country. Nothing more needed to be said. His assistants and the people close to him thought he was crazy, however. “Everybody was so uptight that I was doing it that it started to make me nervous,” he admitted. March 2015 Article Index “I was worried no one would pick me up. That was my worry. There were days when you’d stand out for ten hours and you can’t imagine how slowly those ten hours go. I would always repeat, ‘It only takes one car…’ because that’s true. “Hitchhiking is a little bit of a scary thing for both the driver and the hitchhiker, but you take risks,” continued Waters. “To me, staying home is scary because nothing will happen to you. So, to me, even a bad experience with hitchhiking means something happened. And I’m interested in extreme situations, extreme people, and adventures. As you get older you take less adventures. This was definitely an adventure and my street cred did go up. I’m still impressed I did it. I can’t believe I did it. But I think it’s important to take chances and continue to try something you haven’t done, Next Article Events 11