thanks - figured out how to click in the top timeline abd the Ctrl+A selects everything for easy deletion.
also figured out that the dialog box that says you are going to "DELETE the files permanently from the disk" when clearing the regions - it means that you will delete the files you copied only not the ones from the session you imported from IF you imported with the "Copy from source media" checked.
so - that's better than what i was doing - thanks for the info. it forced me to find a way to do it without spending money!