Problem solved! The list from the prompt said "nancy-lewiss-macbook-pro:~ nancylewis$", which I thought was very general. Yes, we know it is on this machine! This led me to search my downloads folder. Finding nothing I resorted to Spotlight and saw that I had put a copy of the 2010 download folder in a file on my desktop. As soon as I deleted it I was able to get files to open correctly in 2009.
Thank you SO much for your help.