Thanks for this help!

mike Bailey suggested that I validate my fonts in Fontbook and when I did that I discovered 39 which problems (some of which ARE in the documents in question).

My unscientific observation today is that when I make new docs the program seems OK. It's when I try to open anything older that the crash is almost immediate.
I'll go check out the Apple Support Forum as well and the MacFixit resource. Thanks for those links!
Paul