(c)dialog working differently during boot in script called by rc system than after boot?

[Robarrght]

(Background)
I have a script that uses dialog or cdialog (system, not devel,) to
prompt for network settings on my FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE box.  When I
make certain changes with the script, a reboot is required.  But, this
would not be necessary if I ran the script during boot, before
networking is setup.  I've hooked up my script to the rc boot system.

(Issue)
The trouble is that when the rc.d system runs the script, instead of
the proper dialog boxes working as expected, all I get is a cleared
out black screen with a white arrow locked dead center that won't
move.  After boot, the script works normally.  I even have the script
running in getty on a virtual console, where it works like a champ.

So, what is the hangup?  Are there dependencies that (c)dialog needs
which aren't started yet?

(Troubleshooting)
If I simply run
dialog --msgbox "Test message" 6 25
in the rc.d file, instead of having it call my script, I get the same
bad behavior.  That suggests that it is not my script, but the
environment ... right?
I have played with the order of when the test dialog message (my rc.d
file) is ordered and even when it goes way at the end, after cron
starts up, (which is getting pretty close to the end,) no improvement.

I've seen this work on an older FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE box.  But, when I
cranked one of those up and tried the same simple dialog test directly
out of the rc.d script, it yielded a black and white ascii only
version of the message box.  That was an improvement over what I'm
getting on my current FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE version.  But, I wish I knew
what the former magic was.

Does anyone out there see what I'm missing?

Thank you,
Robarrght