All right, I get the dufus-of-the-month award (and it's only the 15th!)  I was using a CSS that I had inherited from my predecessor, and the CSS was overwriting the BODY element color with white.  Now that I've removed that setting, I can set the bgcolor dynamically at will.  

At least now I know that the CSS settings load last.  Anyway, case closed.

I'm really glad I stumbled across this board.  You guys have been extremely helpful.  Hope I can contribute more when I'm a little less green at all this.

-Richard


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