Thanks for the quick reply. I do have the config file and the table prefix matches in the config file to my mySql database.
However, I was doing some work in mysql yesterday for shopping cart software and added a user for that database. I left the wp database stuff alone. I am not sure how my fiddling with these other databases fouled up wp but something must have gone awry.
Any additional ideas to get things going. I will keep digging.