Got it going; this might be helpful. On another forum someone advised being able to delete items by selecting and then holding down shift and then delete. This worked and I deleted hundreds of unneeded items from the inbox. It still wouldn't send and receive. At 4 this morning I realized that the items I deleted were only going into the deleted items folder and not out of the Outlook. pst folder. I emptied the deleted items folder and Outlook is working. Sounds like housekeeping is the answer.
Mike