Well, the big failure turned out to be a non-event.
I looked-up where Teggy's batt came from. I located the repair order:
July 2001; 40K miles from NTB. That's nearly 8 years and 100K miles and it's still cranking!
So, I went to the new NTB up the road and started the process (Exide brand batts, it appears).
The tech put it on the tester and cranked it up. I continued reading the paper and looked into the "bay window" occasionally. He then turned to another tech and he looked to say, "This doesn't need a battery..." Sure enough, a few moments later, they brought the test strip into the waiting area with the good news...
Volts: ~11; Cranking Amps: 300-some (rated for something like 420 CCA). I asked about the red appearance in the indicator, maintenance, etc. They said if it happened again to replace it -- otherwise it's OK. Fair enough -- saved the cash for later -- I was impressed they didn't push a new batt.
That's it for now I hope -- likely until the first cold snap.
RH77