Thanks, DL. I appreciate the quick response.

I got it fixed, but it was quite an odyssey...  I couldn't find
"Detect/Repair" in the help menu.  Also, when I searched help, it came up
with lots of unrelated topics.  Anyway, after a lot of searching on the
Internet, I learned of a utility called scanpst.exe.  Unfortunately, the
Search function on my Start Menu couldn't locate it.  I manually looked
through all my folders that had anything to do with Outlook and found it
buried in a hidden folder.  Then, I had to manually search for my Personal
Folders file (fortunately, it was pretty straight-forward, and named
"Outlook.pst".   When I ran Scanpst, it took about 45 minutes, using 100% of
both cores on my processor, and finally got all the way to the "Repair"
button.  when I told it to repair, it ran a while, then stopped responding.
I had to use Task Manger to stop it.  After a reboot, I tried Scanpst again.
I finished more quickly, using a lot less processor, and reported no errors
found!

I started Outlook, and everything seems to be working again. (fingers
crossed)

This is crazy.  why couldn't the Outlook Help pages have told me about
Scanpst, without me having to go looking for possible fixes.  Why is
scanpst.exe buried so far that it was a chore to find it (probably the
typical computer user would never have found it!)?  Does "Detect/Repair"
normally show up on the Outlook help menu?  Am I just an anomaly who is not
getting a correct install? (I'm using a fully-registered copy of Office
Professional 2003).

I once (long ago) had a Win 3.1 PC operating on my desk side-by-side with
the then-current Mac.  The PC was easier to use and was more dependable than
the Mac.  Hands down, no contest.  However, in the past couple of years, I'm
beginning to think of trying out a Mac again.  One thing I held against
Apple was that they made everything too esoteric, and charged through the
nose for support.   Microsoft has unfortunately adopted Apple's model.