John, dont say it if you dont know it.
It all works. Put the .txt on the memory card. Go to 'Media', push the menu button (the one to the right of the trackball, with BB logo), select 'Explore', find your file, select, click, and enjoy. You can view it just fine, cannot edit text though.
If your phone canot see the files, and you are transfering them through the desktop manager, try setting the phone to the mass storage mode and just copy the files using windows explorer.
If you want to read books or other long text files, you'd be better off getting Mobipocket Reader. Its free, with a desktop module that lets you convert any text document into its format and transfer it to the phone. The reader can remember the place you stopped, thats good for reading books.