The Carving
Time for the new puzzler.
Here it is.
Somewhere in a land far, far away, a teenage boy was smitten with a teenage girl in his high school freshman class.
He made his feelings known. He was overjoyed at finding them reciprocated. She liked him right back. So to commemorate their love, he took pen knife to a young hardwood in the vicinity and carved their initials with a heart five feet up the tree's trunk.
Sadly, by their senior year, the girl fell out of love with the boy. She left him. She took her diploma, went away to the big city and married.
The boy was inconsolable. Completely crushed. Bidding his family farewell, he took his small savings that he got from selling lemonade, bought a bus ticket, went to the east coast and shipped out in a menial job on a broken down freighter.
So, 25 years later, captain of his own vessel, owner of a small freighter fleet, and with a major interest in a few oil tankers, he indulged a nostalgic whim and returned for the first time ever to his old hometown.
Imagine his joy when he discovered his old sweetheart living back in their hometown, now a widow.
One thing led to another. The flame reignited, and one day they searched for their tree. It was not hard to find. It was near a rock, near a river, and they immediately found it.
Now here's the puzzler.
If the tree had added 35% to its height in the first 15 years of his absence, 10% in the following five years, and 2.5% in the ensuing eight years, how far up the trunk did they have to look to find the carving with their initials in it?
Good luck.
