Pierce - Quick & Easy Jigs and Fixtures: Features Dozens of Pro Tips, Tricks and Techniques

In October of 2003, I was diagnosed with Stage 4, non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I was given only a slight chance of surviving the disease. At the time of my diagnosis, I had just begun work on this book, so shortly after I received the bad news, I contacted my editor at Popular Woodworking Books, Jim Stack, and explained I would be unable to finish the book by the June 2004 deadline stipulated in our contract. In fact, I said, I might not be able to finish it at all. Then I put the book aside and concentrated on my illness.

For the next six months, I fought my cancer with a series of intense, five-day-long chemotherapy sessions. The chemo was potent stuff, so potent, in fact, that the nurses who loaded my IV double-gloved their hands before touching the bags in which the toxins were stored.

My response to chemotherapy was better than my doctors had expected, and after six months, my cancer was in remission. The war wasn't over, but I had won the first battle. In March, when my oncologist gave me the green light to return to the shop although on a limited basis I e-mailed Jim Stack to see if they had any work I could do to earn the advance money they'd already paid me for this jig-and-fixture book, money which I'd already spent on medical bills.

He said: Sure. Why not finish the book?

That, I think, says a lot about the kind of people I work for at Popular Woodworking Books. I had assumed that this book had been assigned to someone else during the months I was out of commission. After all, my failure to deliver on time had left a hole in the company's publication schedule. But they didn't give the book to someone else. Instead, they shuffled things around to fill in the gap in their publication schedule and held onto this title until I was ready to go back to work on it.

Maybe it wasn't a smart business decision, but it was the only decision the people at Pop Wood were capable of making.

So thanks, Jim, and everybody else at Pop Wood who had a hand in treating me so well during my illness.

Thanks to John LaVine at Woodwork magazine, who, when he realized I could no longer work in the shop, offered me writing assignments that didn't require me to get dusty.

Thanks also to Roger Mace and Martie Moore who endeavored to keep my shop remodel moving forward when I was on the physically-unable-to-perform list.

Thanks also to Dr. Porcu and the staff at The James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for their gracious handling of a sometimes cranky cancer patient.

And thanks, also, to my wife, Elaine; my daughter, Emily; my son, Andy; my parents Jim and Sally; my brother, Kevin; my friend, Verne; and everybody else who stood with me during a long and difficult year.