what happens when you click settings>general and untick the startup message?

Hi Dennis. The "Start Page" provides information on a variety of subjects, and can't know whether you donated. And thank you for your donation. This start page should in no way prevent you from getting to email. But you must click on a folder and then in the message list click on a message to see it. Does that not happen? Please see https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/getting-started-thunderbird-main-window-supernova for a description of the different parts of the screen.