Out of desperation, I tried ,on the command line, m.arrival_date = date(12/24/1999), and then ran the query. It worked.
On to the next glitch
A field , with strict date entry on (1), long date format, returns a 2 didgit year!
This ^&*!*%# application is a Y2K fix, and a major rush job (It is in use already, just tweaking left on it).
I think we did a good job scince we started three weeks ago by reverse engineering a stand alone Paradox 5 app and re-creating it in VFP