How do I remove text boxes from Pages

I have an awful time with Pages on my lap top. I am used to Appleworks 6.2 on my older desktop (PowerMac G4 / OS 10.4.11). If I specify a US letter page I get that in Appleworks, it is then 8.1/2" x 11", without running into pre-existing formats or other similar distractions. I can immediately type a neat business letter.

Not with Pages. On my MacBookAir, with Pages 4.3 and OS 10.8.4, I can type alright, but when I want to print what I typed, only a small part of what I typed shows up in in Print Preview of my typed page. After a bit of backtracking, I notice a blue-lined rectangle on my typed page containing the portion of my typing that appeared in that Print Preview. It is apparently a self-formed "text box", that was not a part of my blank template page and was not inserted by me while or just before I typed.

I did not find any way to delete the edges of that text box. The "delete" option under the pull down edit menu is blanked out. If I click on the "Text box " symbol in the menu bar it does not let me switch off the text box, but instead gives me another text box inside the first one! I suppose this is to allow user to print only a single keyboard stroke of the entire letter. The "Inspector" seems to have no options to set text boxes.

Pages "Help" Menu has nothing of how to delete a text box, or how to prevent it in the first place from screwing up what you have typed in such manner that it becomes unprintable.

Similarly a small rectangular box formed on both the top and the bottom of each page (which could be a space reserved for a header or footer), but again I do not use these on my business letters, and they appear self-formed by Pages, and I would like to know how to prevent them, or delete them.

In other words I like to get a blank page to start with, which will only set up and type what "I, THE USER" enter on my keyboard.

Can anybody tell me how to this with Pages?

(PS. I can do it with even with Thunderbird !)