T his week we took a look at symbols and what they seem to mean to the people in and around our area. Symbols are all around us, from advertisements telling us to buy the newest and best shampoo, to political icons that help us decide our nation's future course.

Symbols don't always mean so much, especially on their own. After all, what does a symbol or sign mean without living, thinking people who attach meaning to them?

Take, for instance, our front page story regarding the prank pulled by some Rondout Valley High School students. The giant "RV" they painted over Ellenville High School's "08" on the ridge-rock overlooking the village would, at any other time, be acknowledged as the meaningless prank it was. Everyone who spoke about the stunt said that they understood that, on its own, it wasn't that big a deal — it was the significance of the day on which it occurred that caused such uproar among our community. When the community's graduating class's tradition is tarnished or tainted on the day of graduation…well, it doesn't take a genius to realize that people would be more upset on that day than on any other. Of course, one of the Rondout Valley students who perpetrated the act was quoted in the Daily Freeman as saying, "We felt bad until they started to blow it out of proportion."

Remember when we said it didn't take a genius...?

The "RV" symbol and the symbolic act of literally writing over our community's tradition shows that these particular Rondout Valley students might have been in need of a bit more education, and perhaps weren't as eligible for graduation as their teachers may have thought.

Conversely, our Ellenville seniors' and staff's symbolic act of re-painting the "08" shows our community's strength and bonds, and our willingness to come together in times of adversity. Sure…it's just a rock with some numbers on it. But it's a symbol of our commitment to tradition, and to each other.

Not to draw too strong a line of comparison, but the other symbol we've spent time examining is the spray-painted swastika on the speed-limit sign on Berme Road. There's no need to discuss the significance such a symbol brings with it — suffice it to say, even the people who are responsible for painting it must know of the sign's connotations. There are two upsetting aspects surrounding this: one, that we still live in a day and age when symbols like this can rear their ugly heads and remind us of the horrors with which they're associated; and two, that the people living in the area didn't even notice it.

Perhaps that last fact points to a loss of meaning and power for the symbol itself. But events like the Nuerenberg-Fuerth Reunion which took place at the Honor's Haven resort this weekend remind us that it's important to remember the pain and suffering caused under the banner of the swastika.

If anything's to be learned from our community's high school students, it's that we can and should come together as a community to erase the spray-painted symbol of hate, and to remember that symbols aren't simply lines on a rock or a sign — they're meaning and significance taken shape. And symbols can mean a lot to a community that cares.

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