First, thank you, EVERYONE.
And Magistross has it right.
What you all have shared makes enough sense so far in as much as a single variable is concerned. But I'm dealing with four distinct groups of two variables that come into play each time my Ship collides with the related power-up object. Depending on which power-up is hit, that will determine which pair of variables are called and put into the parameters section. So the trick/problem I face is how to pass the ReturnValue BACK to the appropriate variables AS defined in the parameters during the Function call.
I will check out Hornet's examples and see if that doesn't answer my questions further.
Thanks again!