Interest

My dad owes me $6675.37. This is $300 at a compounding interest of 9% over 36 years calculated annually. I am not holding my breath but just so you know its a valid claim, I'll continue.
When we moved from Sydney to Goulburn back when I was about 6, my dad's employer (the Dept Main Roads) provided a nice house that we fitted in as long as my bro and I shared. After a few years Mum and Dad to decide to buy the house off the government and extend it to make a little more room for us. It was a C shaped house with the double garage being one leg of the C and the bedrooms the other and the living areas in the spine of the C. I think that explains it well enough. Well the plans called for the existing double car garage to be converted into bedrooms and a family room and a new garage extended out the front of that. Simple enough.
At the start of the project Dad said "right kids, you have obligations to help with this job for which you will be suitably compensated but I need to know, do you want to be paid bit by bit as you do each task assigned or do you want me to just hold it all up until the end and pay you in one lump sum?"
I'm a lump sum kind of person and knew I'd blow the dribble of cash on junk so I opted for option 2. The lump sum of $300 for the duration of the build was agreed upon. As a 10 year old in 1976, that was an absolute fortune. We would cart materials, clean bricks (worst job in the world) and do general builder's labouring whenever we could. The word child labour may have been mentioned at one point but we are an equal opportunity employer and put it out of mind just as quickly.
Dad was a Surveyor and so had to travel for work every now and then. It was always exciting if he did because dad was one of those dads that could not return to the castle empty handed. My absolute favourite was his trips to a town called Gundagai south of Goulburn on the Hume Highway. The baker there made high top loaves that were so tall they barely were able to sit on the bench without toppling over. And the crust was of such a chewy, crispy and tasty variety I sit here 36 years late and still salivate at the thought if it. The landcruiser survey wagon would often return to us filled to the brim with cases of fresh peaches or cherries from the orchards around Young. So you see, when dad went away, it was in our interest to make him happy to do so because we got a payoff too.
This one day, dad was readying for his departure and I asked "what can I do on the build whilst you are gone", the ever helpful son, eager to progress the project and end up standing there with cash, a peach and fresh bread all at once. Nothing could be better (unless of course there was a tin of sweetened condensed milk nearby)
"well, you see that brick work there, it needs to come down and the bricks cleaned and stacked for reuse"
Dad was pointing at the column of bricks between where the two garage doors once were. About 3 bricks wide and one 2 rows deep.
Dad was waved off and when the time after school allowed, I set about tackling this new monolith. Even as a 10 year old, I was a pretty big kid I think. The ability to swing a hefty sledge hammer was within my skill set lets say. I was also an accomplished woodsman, knowing how to fell a rotting tree for fire wood. How different could this be? When you smash a few bricks to get them loosened up at the base so the rest can more easily be knocked from the mortar, its very much a 'lose yourself' task. I lost myself in the said task and was determined to make short work of this job.
I remember lots of dust as the bricks gave way to the hammer. And then a bad sound. I knew it was a bad sound because it was immediately followed by my mum screaming. How are kids to know the term "Load Bearing Structure" I say.
As the column was dislodged and toppled to the ground, the trusses supporting the roof and resting upon that column tended to submit to my old nemesis, gravity.
Now I know you probably have visions of the entire roof collapsing on me. It didn't. It was strangely held up by it impacting in against itself so only dropped about 3 feet and stayed there. Precariously hanging there. Particles of dust and splinters of timber trickling from the valley formed. Of course my mum went off her nut swearing and asking me "what the hell I was doing?".
"what I was asked to do" was of course my reply.
Dad had to make a quick return home to assess the situation and upon seeing it, could only say "I never thought you could do it". It was he himself that had failed to put acrowprops under it because he just plain thought I didn't have a hope in hell of doing it. He had failed to recognise my interest in completing the task. That interest in things has served me well over the years though I have yet to be paid for its use in that instance. You owe me $300 plus interest dad!