I BELIEVE the problem was a distributed processing program called FOLDING.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home)
When the first reply to my initial query asked if I turned off the
etc/inittab, I
didn't know what Mike was referring to. But looking at the linux folding
package,
I noticed that there was an inittab file for folding, so I imagine that is how I
lost the Virtual Terminal.
I had to re-install Gutsy. But everything's fine right now. No Folding.