I just want a simple website, with no blog

Some thoughts:

Pick the right theme. One with multiple sections (headers, footers, sidebars, etc) works well as they allow you more flexibility for images and widgets.

Use pages rather than posts for your content.

Remove all the comments sections from your pages.

Pay attention to what you put in sidebars, remove the login, RSS and meta sections for example.

Tie your pages to your menu for navigation.

https://en.support.wordpress.com/using-wordpress-to-create-a-website/

Thanx! I feel I am missing something everywhere I look, but I finally managed to disable comments from pages. :~)

Can someone please guide me as to how to remove the Categories, RSS, Meta, etc. stuff in what I believe is the footer? I’m looking at the CSS but I am very rusty and don’t think I am doing anything at all. ??

Sounds like you need to be looking in the Widgets admin area. Rather than remove the display via CSS, you want to actually stop showing that entirely in the footer. Chances are, if you go to https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/widgets.php you will see a “Meta” widget in one of your widget areas. You’ll also see where the Categories area is defined, and more. Good luck!

PS: If you really want to ensure no comments areas make it into your “website, not a blog” site, I recommend the “Disable Comments” plugin or something like it. Install, configure, and forget about it ?? No worries about comment areas “accidentally” being presented to site visitors and no worrying about modifying your theme’s code https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/disable-comments/