@justaguy2,
Given the fact that the moderators removed a number of posts that had been exchanged between me and another member in that thread, it seems pretty likely that they temporarily locked the thread while they were deciding how to deal with it.
I was not paying attention to the thread at the time that posting was disabled, but was instead focused on threads with more recent posts, so I can't say for sure that it was locked. But it's the obvious conclusion.