Thank you so much for the replies...I've racked my brain for another hour or so ... can't figure it out. Here is the entire page.php template file below.
All works fine when the browser calls this file...but if I cut out everything #main div and above and place it in the header.php file and cut everything #footer and below into footer.php (whilst making my get_header and get_footer calls) I get a gap. No errors.
I did notice nothing wrong when viewing the source, but inside Firebug, there are scripts/links from <head> showing up inside the <body> tag... which Firebug measures 14px in height...
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />
<title><?php wp_title('«', true, 'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<?php wp_enqueue_script('jquery'); ?>
<?php wp_head(); ?>
</head>
<body <?php body_class(); ?>>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
<div id="badge"><a href=<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>>Logo</a></div>
<ul id="menu">
<li class="about_us"><a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/about">About Us</a></li>
<li class="how_it_works"><a href="#">How it Works</a></li>
<li class="contact_us"><a href="#">Contact Us</a></li>
<li class="sign_up"><a href="#">Sign Up</a></li>
</ul>
<br class="clearfix" />
</div><!-- end #header -->
<div id="page_quote" class="large_quote black">
“Never has design been more important”
</div>
<div id="main">
<div id="content">
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div <?php post_class(); ?> id="post-<?php the_id(); ?>">
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<?php the_content(); ?>
</div><!-- end of each .post -->
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php else : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
</div><!-- end #content -->
<br class="clearfix" />
</div><!-- end #main -->
<div id="footer">
<div class="sub">
<p>All content are copyright of FAQsMe. All Right Reserved.</p>
</div>
</div><!-- end #footer -->
</div><!-- end #wrapper -->
<?php wp_footer(); ?>
</body>
</html>
I must be completely dense? When comparing Firebug with the single page.php file vs. page.php (with get_header/get_footer) why are the link <head> links showing inside the <body> tags?