Thank you SO MUCH!!!
It worked almost like a charm

Made a couple changes to it for my own aesthetic happiness
<!-- legend -->
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="center"><tr><td rowspan="6">
<table cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1" border="0" ><tr>
<td nowrap="nowrap" align="center"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/forum_new.gif" border="0" alt="On" /></td>
<td nowrap="nowrap"><font class="sf"><b>$vbphrase[contains_new_posts]</b></font></td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" align="center"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/forum_old.gif" border="0" alt="$vbphrase[contains_no_new_posts]" /></td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" align="center"><font class="sf"><b>$vbphrase[contains_no_new_posts]</b></font></td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" align="center"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/forum_old_lock.gif" border="0" alt="$vbphrase[a_closed_forum]" /></td>
<td nowrap="nowrap" align="center"><font class="sf"><b>$vbphrase[a_closed_forum]</b></font></td>
</tr>
</table>
</td></tr></table>
<!-- /legend -->
Basically, I swapped the arrangement a bit. You had text/pics and I swapped it to pics/text. Also, they didn't have something saying it was the forum legend before so I took out that line altogether. I also took out the background color so that it would pick up the background of the forumpage as I use graphics on one of my styles.
You can see how it looks here:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/index.php?s=&styleid=8
Thank you again for your help
Scott