BuddyPress.org

Thanks much for the suggestions. But I tried them and get the same results.
I deleted the plugin, reverted back to the WordPress Twenty Ten theme, and am working with the initial wordpress installation, that is, I have never posted or created any pages. The problem persists. When I go to edit the About page without actually editing it, just clicking on the “View Page” button. I get this message:

Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /about/ on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/1.3.33 Server at neighborsconnect.us Port 80

Same thing if I am on the home page and click on the About in the horizontal menu beneath the header.
That happens with any permalinks other than the default including the custom /%category%/%postname%/ .
And the browser window reads” url/About.

I don’t get any messages when I change the permalinks.