After many days, I've made some progress in getting this worked out - except one problem.   
  
In header.tpl, I have included the following: 
 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/jscript/css/ui.all.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/jscript/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="includes/jscript/jqueryui.js"></script>	
{literal}<script>
 $(document).ready(function(){
   $(".datepick").datepicker({
       dateFormat: "{/literal}{$datepickerformat}{literal}",
       showOn: "button",
       buttonImage: "images/showcalendar.gif",
       buttonImageOnly: true,
       showButtonPanel: true
   });
   {/literal}{$jquerycode}{literal}
 });{/literal}
 {$jscode}
</script>
 
  
In my newform.tpl file, I have the following field for the date: 
 
<input type="text" name="date_from" class="datepick">
 
  
The calendar looks and pops up properly.  However, when a date on the pop-up calendar is clicked on, a text date (MM/DD/YYYY) is not put into the field, it is just blank.  I can't figure out why this doesn't work - do the form fields have to be registered somewhere?   
  
Thank you for any help!!!