UPDATE:
I in the modeless form GotFocus event I put:

xoMainForm.CurrentForm = Thisform

where CurrentForm is a new property in the main form and xoMainForm is a public var for the main form object. Once I did that the form loads and stays. If I comment that line out of the gotfocus the form flashes and is gone. It sure looks like my problem was as I explained below.
Thanks again to both of you for the help.
John.

>I think I got it figured out. Our menu program works by having the each sysmenu command call a procedure that then runs a command such as do form myform. This procedure handles security, user logging, etc. It appears that whatever handle VFP is creating is then lost as soon as the menu procedure is done and returns. In other words it works the same as any other mem var created in a procedure. It's gone as soon as you return from the procedure. I tried creating a public var and running the menu command with do form myform name myvar linked where myvar has been declared public but even that does not work.