Thanks for the excellent post; problem solved. Yes, my Arduino is self-made a clone. I have an ATMega168 with no bootloader, and that seems to have been mixed in with the ATMega328s that do have the bootloader. The bigger problem was that I missed a contact when I soldered the socket into place. Once that was soldered, the ATMega328s were simple to load with my sketch. Thanks very much for your help, all of you.
Peace,
Dave