I read in another thread to make the href an absolute link and so I have done so with the buttons I am including in the sidebar via the Text widget. Strangely the behavior is inconsistent. I will show three entries and then explain the three different results I am getting (although they are written consistently):

<a title="Link Exchange" href="http://www.learninghowtomakemoneyonline.com/our-key-pages/link-exchange/">
<img src="/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/link-exchange.jpg"</a>

<a title="About Us" href="/http://www.learninghowtomakemoneyonline.com/our-key-pages/about-us/">
<img src="/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/about-us.jpg"</a>

<a title="Contact Us" href="http://www.learninghowtomakemoneyonline.com/our-key-pages/contact-us/">
<img src="/wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/contact-us.jpg/"</a>

The Link Exchange button works fine and it doesn't matter if I have the parent category (our-key-pages) included or not.

The About Us button (as well the What is RSS? & Privacy Policy pages) goes to an error page (403?):

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /http://www.learninghowtomakemoneyonline.com/our-key-pages/about-us/ on this server.

The Contact Us button went to the same error page...and then the button disappeared from the sidebar! The html remained in the widget, the image in the image file...all normal...but the button image on the page just vanished.

I tried taking it (and all of them) out of the text widget, saving the change, then adding each one back in one at a time...nada...the Link Ex still works, the others go to the error page and the Contact button won't even appear on the page again. (I use the Easy Contact plugin for that page.)

I've check Permissions and all seems well there.

functions.php 644 (tried at 755, no change)
index.php (theme) 644 ( " " )
bfa_hor_pages.php 644 ( " " )
index/php (wp-content) 755
domain root...all 755 in any possibly related files

I followed a WP Forum thread on the error page issue (which all seemed to do with administrative access) and added an exception in the .htaccess root file per their suggestion. No help.

I've double checked all of the pages in the WP editor to see if there were any differences one page from another (ping or no ping, comment or no comment, etc.) and they are 100% consistent.

I double checked the images in the image folder...everything is as should be...correct naming, etc.

So I am mystified...especially given the fact that there are three different actions from identical formatting.

Any thoughts? (It will probably turn out that I just think the formatting is consistent/correct and there is actually some glaring error that will prove what a noob I am.... If so I will live with the pain and thank you for your help. )

It turns out that the problem was a plugin conflict. AskApache 404 Redirect was gumming up the works. I deleted it and all seems well.