Just to let you all know how this turned out, I called the resident 
Mac/Darwin expert to my office and showed him the errant behavior.  I am 
pleased to say that I actually stumped him.  After fifteen minutes of 
rooting around obscure paths in my Mac box, he recommended two things:

1.)  Stop using bash and start using ksh
2.)  Erase everything and start over.

I followed his advice and now have a script that puts out data to the 
screen as expected. 

R,

John A.M. Darnell
Project Leader
Internal Software Development
Walsworth Publishing Company
John may also be reached at johnamdarnell (at) gmail dot com

Question: On what television series was the lirpa first seen, and who used 
it?

Macintosh Scripting Systems <[log in to unmask]> wrote on 
06/01/2007 02:11:05 PM:

> > From:         Macintosh Scripting Systems on behalf of John A.M. 
Darnell
> > Sent:         Friday, June 1, 2007 12:03 PM
> > Hello everyone:
> >
> >    The cat's away and the mice will play...at least I'm playing with 
bash
> > scripting (just because I have the time and I would like to know...). 
I'm
> >
> > having a rough time getting off the ground, however.  I am writing a 
very,
> >
> > very simple script that looks like this:
> >
> > #!/bin/bash
> > echo  "Hello $USER."
> > ls
> >
> > This file is saved as lst.bsh.
> >
> > I am then executing this very simple script in Terminal with this 
command:
> >
> > bash lst.bsh
> >
> > Nothing happens except that the command prompt returns.  I see no echo 
nor
> >
> > do I see a file listing.
> >
> > What fundamental step am I missing?
> >
> >
> ---
> 
> what happens when you run it with the full path?
> 
> $ /bin/bash lst.bsh
> 
> Could be that /bin isn't in your $PATH.
> 
> 
> Dennis