I’m using Windows 7 and Audacity 2.0.3
I’m having trouble listening to a stereo recording on a mono system, thus losing one side in playback. I thought of pulling up two versions of the song and then deleting one side of each and mixing the output to mono. The problem is I can’t work with just one side of the song in Audacity, is there anyway to separate the two sides of a stereo recording? 
…thus loosing one side in playback.
Probably not, unless there’s something wrong with your mono system. Virtually all mono audio systems are stereo compatible (with left & right being automatically mixed together). I’m betting you are losing the “center” (because left & right are out-of-phase and being subtracted instead of added.)
is there anyway to separate the two sides of a stereo recording?
Yes. In the box to the left of the waveforms, there is a little drop-down arrow. Click that, and select Split Stereo To Mono. From there you can edit the tracks independently or delete one side and make a mono track, etc.
If it’s a phase/polarity problem, it may have been caused by a “stereo widening” or “stereo simulation” effect. These effects can foul-up mono playback. You can try deleting one side, or you can try the Invert effect on one channel but these effects are not always reversible.