Professor Tom Gage has enjoyed a successful half-century career in education and taught graduate courses for over three decades at Humboldt State University. His interests range from John Steinbeck to Captain Bill Jones, a colorful figure from the life of Andrew Carnegie. Gage has been involved with the Middle East since the 1950s. Following a year of hitchhiking that landed him in Damascus in 1959, he returned to the University of California at Berkeley where earned BA, MA, and PhD degrees. He is a Fulbright scholar who taught in Aleppo, Syria for an academic year in 1983 and has also taught in China, Turkey, and Greece. In the 1970s, Gage served as dean of three summer programs held in eight European nations. As Professor Emeritus of the California State University system, Gage continues to teach in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the Humboldt.