Several years ago, my parents, my wife, my son and I ate at a restaurant. After a wonderful dinner, the waiter set the check in the middle of the table. That's when it happened: my father did not reach for the check. Conversation continued. Finally I realized that I should pick up the check! After hundreds of restaurant meals with my parents, after a lifetime of thinking of my father as the one with dollars, it had all changed. I paid the meal, and my view of myself suddenly changed. I was an adult. I was no longer a kid.   Some people mark off their lives in years, I measure mine in small events. I didn't become a young man at a particular age, like 16, but rather when a kid who wandered in the streets called me "mister." These events in my life are called "milestones" .     There have been other milestones .The policemen of my youth always seemed huge, and of course they were older than I was. _ The day came when I suddenly realized that all the football players in the game I was watching were younger than I was. They were just big kids. With that milestone gone was the dream that someday, maybe I, too, could be a football player. Without ever having reached the hill ,I was over it.      I never thought that I would fall asleep in front of the TV set as my father did. Now it's what I do best. I never thought that I would appreciate opera, but now the combination of voice and orchestra attracts me. I used to think that people who watched birds were strange, but this summer I found myself watching them, and maybe I'll get a book on the subject. I feel a strong desire for a religious belief that I never thought I'd want, and echo   my father in arguments with my son. I still lose ...   One day I bought a house. One day --what a day!-- I became a father, and not too long after that I picked up the check for my own father. I thought then it was a milestone for me. One day, when I was a little older, I realized it was one for him too, another milestone. Then they were suddenly neither . suggests that_.
suddenly I found myself no longer a kid. suddenly I knew that they were neither bigger nor older than I was. suddenly I realized that I made a mistake. suddenly they became older than I was.