Wow --- thanks for all of this support, moderators!
I've just sent a ticket to the Help Desk as you've suggested, providing more detail, a link to my Extreme Tracking hit counter and a screen capture of this month's top 25 visitors' host addresses (from Awstats).
Because I didn't want to sound like a total dummy re. site stats and IP Deny in my earlier posting to this forum, I didn't mention that my TCH Awstats don't even include the offending IP Address that I keep seeing in my commercial counter.
In any event, I thank you for your warm group welcome and your encouragement.
I'll post back when things get sorted out.
BTW - I'm sorry it took me a couple of days to get back into the Forum --- I'd activated the feature that sends an e-mail notification of replies, as confirmed by the note under this text box ("You are currently receiving email notification of replies") --- but I've never received any such notification. Admittedly, I do receive a lot of spam (~300/24-hr period), and I may have deleted one message by accident, but I should have received four such messages and I don't remember getting a single one...
[i created a Desktop shortcut to this Forum topic, so I won't wait for e-mail notification - I'll just pop by from time to time...]
Jeez, I already *do* feel like part of the family!
Don, can I borrow the car tonight? --- (:-)
Regards,
Gilles