Thanks again to both of you. I'm thinking there won't be a simple solution here. WITHOUT a lost Local notebook involved, the procedure is simple, as outlined in the docs both of you sent me. However, locating and recovering those lost notes from the Local notebook is the real challenge.
I see that I'm dealing with SQL files, so that scares me even more, being ignorant of same. I took a look at the files in the current EN Data Folder in my Library. Then I took a look at the same files in Time Machine that are from one day before the crash. The size of older "LocalNoteStore.sqlite" file is much larger than the the current, which leads me to believe that my Local notes are there.
HOWEVER, there are several other EN files also updated on that date, and I do not know which are important for a complete recovery of my Local data. As I do not want to muck things up even further, I have not touched the current files, and I'm stuck using EN, without 2000 Local notes, on the web, on my iPad, and on my iPhone.
EN Support says they have kicked my problem ticket to their Technical Support Team, so we'll see what happens.