It was with some trepidation I posted my question  as I had read read the manual.  I actually tried the command on the standby and the redo logs didn't do their little changling thing.  That was on Friday at 4:00 and I had to catch a plane back to Texas so I could spend the long weekend packing and driving to Florida.  So I killed it.  Never done that before, but this computer stuff is all about doing stuff you've never done before.  Thanks to Ric and Mladen, as well as the carefree attitude that comes with total exhaustion and desparate need, I ran the ALTER ... TO PRIMARY on the former primary last night at 2:00 am from my hotel here in Pensacola, FL.  Everything woeked the way I expected it to when I ran the command on the standby.  Logs changed and a shutdown and startup brought the DB back.  I really do love this product.  I can't imagine SQL Server being able to do this after an aborted command on a Microsoft Cluster (or whatever). 

I suspect the issue with the standby might have something to do with a missing archive_log_dest, but that can wait. 

Thanks for reading the list on the weekend guys and gals.  Back out to the UHaul and another day on the road.  I've found out the three cats don't really like each other when they're cooped up together in the cab of a truck.  And the dog tries to keep them in line.  It would be funnier if all this wasn't occurring with me in the middle as I'm hurtling down the road at 60mph.