Honor

HONOR

JOE PANCAKE, dark of hair and complexion, wild of eye and outlook, was a human being. He had a birth certificate to prove it. "Joe Pancake," it read (no middle name or initial, no formal first), with the Good Samaritan Hospital of Los Angeles at the top of the page to bear it out. He kept the paper in the bottom drawer of his dresser, in a yellow envelope that also held his three other Very Important Documents. One of those documents was his college diploma, which read:

Brigham Young University
upon recommendation of the University Faculty
and by authority of the Board of Trustees
has conferred upon
Joe Pancake
the degree of Bachelor of Arts
with all the Rights, Privileges, and Honors
thereunto appertaining

Joe Pancake had read those words many times, and despite the fact that he was now a college graduate, had not the slightest idea what they meant.
He had received in the mail one day, several weeks after the actual graduation ceremonies (which he had not attended), the official diploma, along with a miniature replica, encased in plastic, and some pamphlets and advertisements concerning the Alumni Association. The accompanying letter told him that he could, if he so chose, keep the smaller copy, the one encased in plastic, inside his wallet. This he did, placing it next to the miniature replica of the Honorary Discharge he had received from the United States Army four years earlier.
Those first couple of months following graduation, Joe did very little thinking about what he was going to do with his life. For four years, he had been--or felt that he had been--under constant pressure: to do, to do, to do. There was always the next book to read, the next paper to write, the following semester of classes to enroll in. Graduation had always been some far-off goal that everything else was leading up to. When it actually did come, and then, more quickly, when it was over and gone, he found the time in which there was next to nothing he really had to do. Most of his friends, who had also graduated with him, already had their jobs, or at least possibilities lined up--interviews, and the like. Joe Pancake did not. Instead, he used the time, if for just once in his life, to simply sit back and relax.
What with the Honorable Discharge from the Army, he had been able to go through college with the aid of the G.I. Bill. Though it had got tight at times, he did manage to graduate debt-free, something of an accomplishment in itself, and he even had close to a thousand dollars in the bank.
Toward the end of May, he and one of his roommates drove, in Joe's red Volkswagen bug, up to the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. The crowds in the valley and the deep snow up on the hiking trails prevented him from truly enjoying himself, and so, two weeks later, going to the other extreme, he drove down to Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah and hiked, alone, out to the Confluence Overlook of the Green and Colorado Rivers. He didn't take along enough water, and he nearly suffered heat stroke before a ranger found him, resting under a juniper tree and very thirsty.
One day, back in Provo, rising earlier than usual, he decided to clean the house. His two roommates were gone and would not be back until the next evening, and he thought that it would be a nice gesture. He swept, he washed, he mopped; he cleaned his own room as well. He did his laundry, and when he came back to the house, after putting in a full day's work, he flopped himself down in his big, favorite, comfortable chair in the living room and stared at the wall. After awhile, almost unconsciously, he pulled out his wallet. He thumbed through it, casually looking at the old photographs, cards, notes. He came to the miniature replica of his diploma. He took it out and looked at it. He read it. Carefully. Slowly. He shook his head in wonder.
The next day, he took it out again and read: ". . . with all the Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining." He looked up from the small card he held in his hands. What in hell's name does that mean? "Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining." I'm a graduate, he thought to himself. Just what are my "Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining"? That's what I'd like to know.
For a full week, when the house was empty and no one was around, Joe Pancake took out the tiny diploma encased in plastic and stared at it. Every day. And the words always stared back at him: "Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining." And still he did not know. He put the card back into his wallet, but within the hour, he had it back out and was reading it again.
Finally, he could stand it no longer. He sat down with pen and paper and wrote to the Alumni Association. It was a simple, direct letter:

Dear Sir,
As a graduate from the Brigham Young University, I was wondering: What exactly are my "Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining"? Any information concerning this matter would be greatly appreciated.

And he signed it, sincerely.

Perhaps it was just the writing of the letter that was needed. For Joe Pancake soon forgot, not just the letter, but about the words on the diploma as well. It was more than a month before he got a reply in the mail:

Dear Mr. Pancake,
I apologize for the delay in answering your letter, but am afraid it was submerged in my "In" basket. When it floated to the top today, I quickly grabbed it before losing it again. I have enclosed a sheet of privileges for BYU Alumni, and as you live here in Provo, I can see why you would want to know what they are. Hope you enjoy the facilities and the campus in the future. If you have any problems, let us know.

Sincerely,

Josephine Crandall
Records Supervisor

The attached mimeographed sheet listed all of the privileges: use of the hobby center, movie theatre, and book store; library privileges (for a set fee); and use of the locker room and other facilities in the gymnasium (again, for a set fee).
It was a week later that Joe wrote the following letter:

Dear Ms. Crandall,
Thank you very much for your kind letter informing me of my privileges as a BYU Alumnus. It was most helpful. However, I am still left somewhat in the dark as to what my "Rights . . . and Honors thereunto appertaining" are. Any further information regarding this matter would be even more appreciated. I thank you in advance.
Sincerely,

Joe Pancake

This time the response was much quicker:

Dear Mr. Pancake,
As you can see from my quick response, your latest letter did not sink into oblivion in my "In" basket. To answer your question concerning graduate rights in addition to Alumni privileges, the answer is basically that there is no real difference . . .

Sincerely,

Josephine Crandall
Records Supervisor

He hated to do it--truly hated to do it--but he had come this far. And the question still lay there before him, unanswered. He wrote the letter, just one word, hopefully:

Dear Josephine:
". . . Honors . . ."?
Joe Pancake

And again, the speedy reply, just as brief:

Joe:
Sorry.
Josephine

Joe Pancake looked at the letter he held in his hands. He read the word, dark as a wound, over and over. So it had come to this, he thought. He took out from his wallet the tiny card with the diploma photographed on it and read the words that had been troubling him for most of the summer: "Rights, Privileges, and Honors thereunto appertaining." "Rights, Privileges, and Honors." "Thereunto appertaining." He shook his head. Unconsciously. Even he could not have said exactly what it was that he felt at the moment. He folded the letter, and again, and then once more so that it was small enough to fit inside his wallet. And there he placed it, so that it would always be there: next to the miniature diploma encased in plastic. He folded the wallet closed and slipped it inside his back pocket.