Aha, I would have called them just cantilever but I had been reading up on them with Sheldon Brown. He describes three types of cantilever brakes, mine being a "traditional center pull, thus my description of them as center pull cantilevers."

Edit: just re-read it and see I called them center pull rather than center pull cantilevers. Your correction was correct

I am a bit reluctant to venture over there (although I may in the future) because I am fairly mechanically clueless. Better to get advice from a sympathetic audience over here and venture over there when this crowd is baffled.

As a side note I learned that my spring popping problem was resolved by backing out a little adjustment screw that I initially needed to tighten up to get the tension pin into the forward of the three holes.

Here is another mystery encountered in this effort. My front brakes have been squealing like a stuck pig for a year or so. I use them in lieu of a horn to warn people of my approach. I have tried all kinds of things to fix them (toe in, sanding the pads, etc). With a new wheel on there I decided to install new pads (even though the old ones were not yet done in). Still squeals.