Somehow my system started trying to run soffice when I clicked on any folder selection under "Places"{{::screenshot_at_2017-02-23_12_49_21.png|}}

I did a bunch of searches and finally found that:
<code>
jim:~$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory
libreoffice-writer.desktop
</code>
So I did 
<code>
jim:~$ xdg-mime default caja-folder-handler.desktop inode/directory application/x-gnome-saved-search
</code>
Which corrected the problem.