Thank you hegemony for responding. After poking around on my screen I found a very tiny + button and when I clicked it, they showed up again and the + is replaced by a minus.
Yes, you can expand or contract any section of the fora from the forum home page in that way.
However, you could also avoid the problem by setting your bookmark page to be the "recent unread topics" or "new replies" (responses to your posts) page.
VP