Thank you for all your input.
Seems like a lot of effort to get a working system....
Oh well....
A little clarification. when I close the lid, and then open it, I get the desktop background, just no way to do anthing - no login, no way to click anything, etc.
What does work for me is using the menu to sleep. Then resume does work. So basically, the LID CLOSE EVENT needs to do the same thing as the menu for sleep. So it is close to working.
So for now,
1. Change the power settings to not let it go to sleep automatically.
2. Don't close the lid unless you have manually put the device to sleep first.