I am new, I apologize if this is a trivial or non-problem.  I have
researched for hours, tried every variant but cannot understand why this
doesn't work.

strip removes any of a set of characters from the beginning and end of a
string, not the middle.

Please refer questions such as this to python-list or python-tutor. 
There are many helpful people on those lists who will help you learn
your way around python.

Good advice from R. David. In addition, you'll find the help command useful:

>>> help(''.strip)
Help on built-in function strip:

strip(...)
    S.strip([chars]) -> string or unicode
    
    Return a copy of the string S with leading and trailing
    whitespace removed.
    If chars is given and not None, remove characters in chars instead.
    If chars is unicode, S will be converted to unicode before stripping