My error... changed port number to other than 8080. I didn't understand the concept of "running" the MockService. As I indicated initially I selected the run service (green triangle), but all that did was make the progress bar go back and forth. I thought that action was essentially executing the service and I expected it to return the string. So then the activity bar bounced back and forth, I'd wait and then kill it.... I didn't understand that running the MockService was putting it into a running state and that it needed to stay in that state and when in that running state I'd issue the http get request from a browser. As I said this is all strange to me.
That said I really need to understand this path concept. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I'll gladly read/research if anyone can provide where to focus. The Mock Service options set the path to "/" which normally would be the root directory. The MockAction was "/hello" Why the heck is an action documented as a DIRECTORY PATH? There is just so much abstraction here I can't make any sense of this stuff.