Earl Ronneberg

Forms of Life Earl Ronneberg

Publisher Marketing: Forms of Life narrates a journey that ranges from early 2,000 B. C. E. to the mid-fifties C. E. to Renaissance and modern Florence, Italy, nineteenth and twentieth century Michigan, and on to modern times. To span those times and locations, three interwoven story-threads alternate back and forth across time, resulting in a braided strand which amounts to a collective intellectual quest or odyssey by virtue of entering the worlds of philosophy, history, biography, anthropology, religion, politics, cultural studies, mythology, poetry, cosmogony, and other fields. The resulting moasic within Forms of Life draws extensively on scholarly excerpts from those fields as they are set against the stories which, as with other works of the author, also interweave elements from actual, authorial experiences, with fictional characterizations involving both John Sherman -- the author's alter ego -- and others. The dedication is: "To the University of Chicago which, for fifty-two years -- through three years of correspondence courses, four years of a great books program, two master's degrees (MBA and MLA), and twelve years of audited classes, too numerous to list -- has never ceased to be on my mind." Like the ten short stories in the author's book, Western Michigan Tales of Mystery and Adventure, Forms of Life begins and ends at Bass Lake, north of Pentwater, Michigan. Contributor Bio:  Ronneberg, Earl Earl Ronneberg has authored four books of short stories, two books of memoirs, a book of poetry, philosophy, and a novel. He holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton, having attended that school on an NROTC scholarship; he served for three years as an officer on the USS Hank (DD-702), a general purpose destroyer. After his military service he earned a graduate degree from Stanford and, during 32 years with IBM, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago. After retiring in June of 1997, he earned his third master's degree, a Master of Liberal Arts degree from the University of Chicago. Married, with two adult children and three grandchildren, Earl has spent his entire married life of 48 + years in Hyde Park in Chicago. The back cover of The Gospel of Marriage anticipates his 50th wedding anniversary in 2015; it reads as follows: "Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December - But the days grow short when you reach September - When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame - One hasn't got time for the waiting game - Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few - September, November - And these few precious days, I'll spend with you - These precious days, I'll spend with you. Time is stretched when the long year becomes fifty; each week now a year. The horizon of knowing the love of one's life becomes close enough to sense the change of autumn's flaming leaves to a golden anniversary. But the autumn breeze carries lines from within a prayer of Kierkegaard's, to will one thing, during those precious days: 'So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. . . . As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing'. The lines do not arise from the motives of remorse and repentance, but gather up two elements that combine to confess the fiery point from which the transfiguration of the world can begin: love and marriage."