hi group-
thx. to those who posted with suggestions and/or thought about helping.
I am using squirrel sql for postgres now which I really like. It turns out that I found that instead of pgadmin III.
I did many things wrong. I didn't initdb. I didn't put my database in a directory owned by postgres. I also didn't start the server process as postgres user.
Finally to get squirrel to recognize my tables I had to use a schema.
I started referring to my db book instead of just reading on the internet.
A new book is a top priority.
thx. again,
jim