I've read all the comments, and I appreciate all the great advice. cwb48, the descirption of how the clutch works helps out a lot! I would love to take a bike apart to see how it works. The problem is whenever I take something apart, TV, computer, car, i'm never interested in putting it back together.
anyway, thanks again to everyone for all the pointers, and please add anything else that you may think will be helpful for a newbie. I could never learn enough!