Not just older, but wiser

Rico says that, back when he read Heinlein's Glory Road some forty-five years ago, he didn't understand the true meaning of the phrase on the sword (photo): Dum vivimus, vivamus: While we live, let us live!'

As Heinlein explained:

"What did I want? I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The games' afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin. I wanted Prester John and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.
I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be, instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is."

Rico says he didn't get any of that stuff, either, and his sword (bought for a lot less than what they're charging for this one) is a 1940s samurai sword (a signed-on-the-tang family piece, not some gunto POS). Maybe it's why Rico is still 'playing dress-up', as his ladyfriend refers to his fetish for cowboy action shooting and piratical events and Civil War reenactments...