[Jennifer Martin]

I figured it out.

I used this:

{php}func_print_r($this->_tpl_vars);{/php}

to view what variables I had available on the page I'm working on.

I saw that the variable [description] was not listed.

So I went to include/categories.php and added

$sql_tbl[categories].description

to the line:

if ($short_list) { $to_search = "$sql_tbl[categories].categoryid,$sql_tbl[categories].parentid,$sql_tbl[categories].categoryid_path,$sql_tbl[categories].category,$sql_tbl[categories].product_count,$sql_tbl[categories].description,$sql_tbl[categories].avail,$sql_tbl[categories].order_by";

and the rest is history!

Thanks for all your "help" forum people.