huh. Thanks. I understand what you mean about the symbolic reference. I just was not seeing it that way. (hence, while I understood the error message, I thought my problem was in the syntax, when all along it was improper referencing.)

Thanks. And re your suggestion, I was going to go the route of an array -- but got hung up on why I couldn't make this work.

Thank you, I can now stop floundering and get back to being productive.