(Thrashing around -- don't laugh:) I now see that if, at the very top of my program, I add
import sys
sys.path.append('/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/
site-packages/wx-2.5.4-mac-unicode')
import wx
It works, and works together: wx 2.5.4.1 with Python 2.4.1. (And a glitch in wx 2.5.3.8, Escape not dismissing a dialog with a cancel button, is fixed! Yay!) (I do have peculiar behavior with introductory text my code writes into a TextCtrl, but I imagine I can track that down.)
Needless to say, this looks like a pretty dodgy way to fix the problem. Perhaps it's because of Apple's original framework concept for Python (inside /System, where I don't want to fiddle if I can help it) that I'm confused about the *right* way to solve it.
Charles Hartman