the farley prophecy

The Farley ProphecyBy Abraham W. Bolden, Sr.

© April 30 2004 Abrahamp W. Bolden, Sr. All rights reserved 1

The narration below is a true account of an experience had by the author. The author does not claim to be a Messenger, Prophet, or possess any supernatural abilities that cannot be possessed by any other human being.

The author has reduced his experience to writing for one purpose and one purpose only. That purpose is to propagate and relate to the masses how The Infinite Creative Cosmic Consciousness works through man for the betterment of of ALL mankind. Its purpose is to confirm the Truth of the Sacred Scriptures and the Omnipresence of the Higher Powers.

Please bear this purpose in mind as you read this presentation. To Our God Be the Glory.

The Author

Abraham W. Bolden, Sr.


[The Farley Prophecy]

[The Company Explosion]

I didn’t feel too much like going to work on the night of April 14, 1985. At that time

I was the inspection foreman on the midnight shift at the Farley Tool and

Engineering Company, 1800 South Peoria Street in Chicago, Illinois. I had been

continuously employed there for almost 15 years and had survived 3 changes in

plant ownership of the screw machine department. The company was previously

called National Lead and, for a number of years, was the main manufacturing

location for Dutch Boy Paints. Each time that the company changed ownership, the

salaried employees were put on the bubble so to speak. We didn’t know whether we

would be retained by the new ownership or not.

I ran the inspection office in the screw machine department and was responsible for

the overall quality of all parts produced on the night shift. Because I had a lot of

experience in the operation of inspection equipment and procedures, most of the

new inspectors were sent to my shift to be trained. I had previously worked as plant

supervisor and inspection foreman at another steel fabricating company in Chicago.

Usually I would bounce out of bed around ten o’clock at night looking forward to

going to work. I had many friends on the job. We were like a family on the night

shift. The foreman, Roosevelt, over the second shift referred to the third shift crew

as the ‘midnight mafia’ because we were so bonded together in the spirit of


cooperation and brotherhood. Once or twice a week, the workers on our shift would

contribute money for the purchase of chicken or steaks that we would cook on top of

one of the gas fired kettles in which liquefied aluminum metal was contained.

The melted metal was then drawn out of the kettle into long rods of varying

circumferences. After the drawing process, the rods were cut to length, transported

to a salt tank, and soaked in a liquefied solution of salt at a temperature of 900

degrees Fahrenheit. These ‘cured’ rods were finally inserted into the spindles of an

automatic screw machine.

An automatic screw machine resembles a hand operated cutting lathe but operates

automatically once that the multiple spindles are loaded. The automatic screw

machine had either six or eight spindles into which the aluminum rods were inserted

by an operator. Inside the machine, cutting tools are bolted to a rotating stage and

positioned by the operator. The sharp cutting tools and drills trim, shave, and form

the aluminum rod into specific dimensions and shapes. There were about 42 of these

machines located in the screw machine section next to the rod department.


On Sunday night, April 14, 1985, during my customary short nap prior to heading

for work, I had an incredibly lucid dream. In the dream, I was walking between the

machines in the screw machine department. Suddenly a terrific explosion occurred

in the area occupied by the rod department. Fire was all around me. The entire

department was engulfed in flames; there appeared to be no way out. Machines

were crumpled like tissue paper and large pieces of the ceiling were falling to the

floor of the shop in all directions. Hot cinders were raining down from above, and

the machine operators were scrambling and running towards the east entrance to

the department. The entrance was partially blocked by huge concrete support

pillars that were broken and strewn across the aisle. Steel structural beams fell from

the ceiling and landed atop several of the screw machines.

In the dream, I ran through the west aisle in the shop, and headed towards the

receiving dock that was around the corner and up a slight incline. I was moving as


fast as I could, but I was not running. The reality of the dream was overwhelming. I

woke up to find my heart pounding from the excitement of the dream. I stared into

the darkness of the bedroom thinking about the dream before finally rolling out of

bed and getting dressed for work.

That night, on April 14, I thought about the dream as I drove down the Dan Ryan

Expressway heading for work. When I arrived, I went straight to the small quality

control office in the screw machine department. As was customary, some members

of the third shift had arrived for work a little before time in order to discuss any

production problems they had experienced with the previous operator. The

inspection office was the focal point and gathering place of many of the early

arrivals because as founder of the coffee club, I would have hot coffee prepared for

the third shift operators before the shift started. Supervisors were required to

arrive for work one-half hour earlier than the operators so that gave me ample time

to prepare the coffee each night.

I couldn’t get the dream out of my mind. As three of the operators, Hector, Russell

and Charles were kidding and joking around in the office, I abruptly interrupted

their conversation.

“Man, I had a heck of a dream before I came to work tonight,” I said.


The three of them stopped talking and listened intently to what I was about to say. I

told them about the dream in every detail. I described the explosion and fire; the

destruction of the walls and ceiling; the support pillars lying across the aisle, and the

escape route that I took in the dream in order to flee the blaze.

“Hey man, you scaring me. You sound like you believe it happened,” Hector

Nueva said with his Cuban accent.

Russell Barnett, who was in the office using the optical comparator, heard the

conversation. He shut off the comparator and as he exited the office, turned and

said:

“If something like that happens, I just hope it’s not on my shift.”

“I’m with Russell on that,” Hector said as he walked out of the door behind

Russell. Both Russell and Hector were screw machine operators on the second shift.

“Ha Ha. That’s some dream you had,” Charles Calhoun said with a slight

chuckle.

We talked about the dream several times while we met at work. None of the workers

thought there was anything to the dream. Neither did I for that matter.


It was around 8:00 P.M. April 26, 1985 and I was seated in my black leather easy

chair preparing to undress and take my customary short nap before going to work.

The telephone rang and my wife, Barbara, answered it in the kitchen.

“It’s Charles,” she said. She stood holding the telephone until I slipped on

my shoes and walked into the kitchen.

“Hey Charles, what’s up?” I said.

“Man, we ain’t got no job,” Charles stated with a nervous chuckle.

“What you talking about, man?” I asked impatiently.

“Ain’t no company no more. Turn on channel five. They’re talking about it

on the T.V. right now. Ain’t no more company. We ain’t got no job.”

I hung up the telephone and walked back into the dining room and turned on the

television. I turned the tuning knob to channel five and saw televised pictures of fire

engines and firemen engaged in fighting what the T.V. anchorman said was a huge

fire at 18th and Peoria Streets.

“There was a terrific explosion at the National Lead Company,” the reporter

was saying as pictures of the crumbled walls and blown out windows flashed across


the screen. “There were 3 men killed in the explosion that employees say occurred

when one of the furnaces exploded. Several workers were injured by falling

debris,” the reporter continued.

I stood mesmerized by the images of the fire and explosion that were being shown.

These were almost identical images and scenes that I had seen in the dream ten days

before. Hastily, I sat down with eyes fixed on the television screen as the reporter

gave additional details.

“The explosion occurred around 7:00 P.M. when most of the second shift

crew was upstairs eating lunch,” he reported. He went on to explain that the force

of the explosion had broken windows for a mile from the company and that some

workers had not been accounted for.

“I’m going down there,” I told Barbara as I hurried towards the kitchen

door for the garage. Grabbing a light coat and following me out of the back door,

Barbara said that she was coming along.

We drove down the Dan Ryan expressway to Cermak road. I exited at Cermak

Road because I had anticipated that the route near 18th and Peoria Street would be

blocked due to the fire. I was right. Seeing the traffic congestion, I made a detour

and parked on 17th Street just east of Halsted Street. We jumped out of the car and

walked towards 17th and Peoria.


It was an eerie sight. The fire department had focused powerful floodlights all

around the sides of the building. I could see the caved in walls. One section of the

east wall was blown out. Looking through the large holes that had been made in the

walls at the time of the explosion, I could see the twisted steel that was once the thick

steel spindles of a screw machine.

“This is just like the dream,” I whispered to Barbara as I peered into the

darkness of the plant.

I walked to the guard’s office which was in the middle of the block on the Peoria

Street side of the plant. The fire was out and, in the dim emergency lighting that

was shining in the courtyard, I recognized the company President, Don Williams, in

conversation with Mike Savitch who was the plants’ general foreman. There was an

expression of sadness and disbelief on their faces as they surveyed the damage from

where they were standing just inside of the courtyard. I walked over to where they

were standing. Barbara waited for me in the small guard office.

“We’re not letting anyone in, Bolden,” Don said as I approached. “It looks

bad. We’re going to be calling all of the employees tomorrow. I don’t know where

we are going from here,” he said shaking his head in apparent disgust. “We’re

trying to contact all of the third shift people and let them know not to come in for


work. If you see any of your people out there, let them know that we will be

contacting them tomorrow,” he said placing his hand on my shoulder.

Peering over the shoulder of Don into what now were the remains of the screw

machine and rod departments, I could see the twisted steel spindles of what was the

night before parts of working screw machines. The mounds of charred rubble stood

silently as tombstones in a plant now dead in the stillness of the night. Without

saying a word, I turned and headed back through the guard’s office and onto Peoria

Street. As my wife and I were walking down Peoria, a voice called out from among

a small group of men standing across the street from the demolished building.

“Hey Bolden, hey Bolden.”

I looked around and recognized Hector as he emerged from the group. His right

arm was in a white emergency type sling. His right hand was neatly wrapped in

gauze. Hector trotted over to me and in his Cuban accent began to relate what had

happened during the explosion.

“Man, it was just like your dream,” he said excitedly. “I was working on #38

machine and all of a sudden there is this big boom and I see fire, smoke and dust

everywhere. I think that it came from the rod department because that whole wall

exploded out into the aisle in front of the tool room. I think the wall fell on DooDoo

and killed him.”


Doodoo was the nickname that I had given one of the Serbian screw machine

operators.

“I saw DooDoo walking down the aisle and just as he was about to pass by

the big opening leading from the screw machine department to the rod department,

the whole wall fell on him,” Hector continued. “At first, I didn’t know what to do,

but I remembered that in your dream the courtyard was clear; so I climbed over a

big concrete pillar that had fallen on top of my machine and was blocking my way

out. I crawled in the direction of the big overhead door that leads to the yard. All of

a sudden, all of the lights went out. I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face it

was really dark. I couldn’t see nothing but smoke, fire and flames everywhere,”

Hector recounted waving his left hand into the air and growing more expressive as

he talked. “When I got closer to the yard, there was no more fire and I could see

through the light from the guard’s office through the dust and smoke. I got up off of

my hands and knees and ran through the guard’s office and out of the building onto

Peoria Street,” he concluded almost out of breath as he spoke.

“What happened to your arm?” I asked.

“Aw, that’s nothing. I just hurt it a little as I was crawling over the pillars.

The medics put this bandage on it,” he said pointing to the sling. “I told them that I

didn’t want to go to the hospital, so they left.”


I drove slowly back to my house not really believing what I had just witnessed. It

seemed so eerie and unreal. The bright flood lights against the gray stucco siding of

the plant; the twisted machines, and the stillness of death that was visited upon the

company seemed as another chapter of a horrible dream. Was this too a dream? I

asked myself this question over and over during the drive home. I backed into the

garage. How I hoped that I would suddenly wake up and discover that I had been

dreaming once again.

Don called a meeting of Farley employees. The meeting was held three days later in

the basement of a Catholic Church near the corner of 18th and Union Streets in the

Pilsen neighborhood. This location was just around the corner from where the

plant was located. Before the meeting started, several employees were standing

around the outside of the church discussing the destruction of the plant and the

death of three of the workers. I was engaged in conversation with Charles Calhoun

and Raymond Shamberger when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Dam, Man,” Russell said, walking around from behind me and into my

view. “You called that right that time,” he said. Russell explained that he was

working on #3 screw machine in the west end of the department when he heard a

loud explosion. He looked up from behind the machine and saw a big ball of fire

shoot up in the area where the rod department was located. According to Russell,


he went down the center aisle in an attempt to get out of the building, but that aisle

was blocked by twisted machine parts and chunks of the ceiling lying on the floor.

The two overhead loading doors that faced 17 th Street were locked, and the foreman

who would have had the key was on vacation.

“There was so much fire that I didn’t think that I would ever get out of there

alive,” Russell said as a few fellow workers came over to where we were standing

and listened in. “The plant got pitch black and all you could see was the fire and

black smoke. I remembered what you said in the inspection room a week ago. You

said that in your dream, you went up the ramp past the second operation

department and out of the door into the yard.” Russell went on to say that he and

several other workers heard him calling through the heavy suffocating smoke and

heat of the massive fire and followed the route that I had taken in the dream. Once

that they reached the ramp, there was heavy smoke, but no fire and they made their

way safely to the door leading into the yard.

“Thanks man. You saved my life,” he ended as he and another machine

operator, Lonnie Wilson, walked towards the church entrance.

The plant remained in operation, but the screw machine department was closed in

December, 1985. There were whispers and innuendo circulated about that I had

something to do with the explosion and fire. These rumors were initiated by

Roosevelt Washington, the second shift foremen, who told me to my face that I had


conspired to blow up the place. He told me that a worker told him that I knew that

the company was going to blow up a week before it actually happened, and that he

felt that I had something to do with the destruction. When the plant blew, Roosevelt

Washington was on vacation.

An investigation of the explosion determined that it was caused by the overheating

of one of the salt dissolving tanks located in the rod department. Stewart, the

second shift leadman, told me in a conversation that he went to the shift electrician

at around ten minutes before 7:00 P.M. on the night of the explosion and

complained that one of the salt tanks was bubbling and appeared to be overheating.

The tank in question had been fitted with a new digital thermostat the day before

the accident by a private electrical firm. The firm’s chief electrician left orders with

production control that the tank not be used until final adjustments and calibrations

were made to the newly installed digital thermostat. The visiting electricians placed

a lockout tag on the electrical box connected to the tank in order to prevent usage.

According to my understanding of the events as related to me by Stewart, the

lockout tag was removed at the start of the second shift by Mike Savitch who was

the general foreman of the department. Mike said that he needed to press the tank

into operation so that the quota for the number of rods produced for the screw

machine department could be met. Mike removed the tag and ordered the shift

electrician to start up the tank.


At about 6:55 P.M., Stewart suggested that the electrician bring the heavy duty

thermometer and measure the temperature of the liquefied salt which was to be a

maximum of 900 degrees Fahrenheit. The shift electrician refused to test the tank

saying that it was too close to his lunch time. He promised to measure the

temperature of the tank right after he returned from lunch break at 7:30 P.M. The

tank thermostat at that time showed a temperature of 1300 degrees Fahrenheit

according to Stewart who related that information to the shift electrician before the

electrician left the maintenance office and went to the upstairs cafeteria located in

another section of the building for lunch.

At about 7:00 P.M., the majority of the screw machine and rod department

employees went to lunch leaving a small crew in each department to monitor the

running machines and work areas. An employee by the name of Marino was a lift

truck driver and it was his job to haul liquefied aluminum from the two main

furnaces located in the back of the department to several smaller gas fired kettles in

the rod producing department. As he was driving past the salt tanks, he noticed

that the liquefied salt content in one of the tanks was beginning to bubble. This

bubbling indicated to Morino that the content of the tank was probably exceeding

the recommended temperature control limits for the quenching and salt bath

solution inside of the tank. Fearing a catastrophe was about to occur, Morino

stopped his lift truck, dismounted, and asked Stewart if he knew the temperature of

the salt solution in the tank. Stewart told Marino that the temperature of the tank

was not known because the new thermostat had not been calibrated.


“That tank is too hot,” Marino asserted to Stewart while walking over

towards the tank.

“I know,” replied Stewart. “I went over to the maintenance office and told

the electrician about the tank. He said that he’d be here right after lunch.”

Morino had been with the company for almost 20 years and most of his years

had been spent in the rod department where the tanks were located. He had

worked the salt tanks many many times; he knew the procedures and regulations

pertaining to safety requirements in the department. Morino said that he was not

satisfied with the electrician’s decision to delay shutting down the tank. Morino

walked over to the electrical box that controlled the gas intake to the furnace. He

placed his right hand on the handle of the on and off switch with his back towards

Stewart.

“I’m shutting this tank down,” he said as he started to pull the lever down.

At that very instant, the tank exploded. Stewart, who was standing about 50

feet from Morino, saw the boiling salt whoosh out from the tank and cover Morino

from head to toe. Morino’s clothing was instantly drenched and ignited by the

super hot contents of the tank. Morino let out a brief muffled scream before

collapsing to the floor quivering in a ball of white hot flame. Stewart turned and


began to flee from the department in the direction of the metal overhead door that

led into the courtyard. After the first explosion, the force of the blast caused

secondary chain reaction explosions in the two other tanks in a line parallel to the

exploding tank. The almost synchronized explosions of the two additional tanks

occurred with such force that Stewart was almost knocked off his feet while running

away from the blasts.

How I wish that it was all just a bad dream.

Saturday, December 25, 2010 8:10 PMFrom: "Hector Nueva" To: "a.bolden" <[email protected]>DEAR FRIEND BOLDEN;I RED YOUR E MAIL AND I FOUND IT ACCURATE ABOUT THE EVENTS THAT HAPPENED THAT TERRIBLE NIGHT. YOUR NARRATION MADE ME TO RECALL MANY DETAILS THAT I ALMOST FORGED. HOWEVER, I FOUND SOME LI TE MISTAKES ABOUT THE NAMES OF THE GUYS INVOLVE IN THE EVENT. FOR EXAMPLE, MIKE LAST NAME IS NOT SAVAGE, BUT SAVITCH. MY LAST NAME IS NOT NUEVO, BUTNUEVA . EVEN IMPORTANT OR NOT, I DECIDED TO LET YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS CORRECTION IF YOU CONSIDER THEM NECESSARY FOR YOU BOOK.LIKE YOU MENTION, I ENJOY YOUR COFFEE TOO , BUT BETTER YET, OUR TIME WORKING TOGETHER. I DID NOT FORGET ALL THE CONVERSATION WE HAD ABOUT DIFFERENT ISSUES AND I CAN SAY VERY PROUDLY THAT I LEARN MANYTHINGS AS RESULT OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS AND YOUR PATIENT TRYING TOUNDERSTAND MY CUBAN ACCENT. THANK YOU GOOD FRIEND.WELL BOLDEN, THIS IS NOT THE ONLY TIME I WILL SEND YOU SOME E-MAIL.


I WANT TO LET YOU KNOW NOW, MY CONDOLENCE ABOUT THE DECEASE OFYOUR WIFE. WHEN YOU WRITE OR CALL ME, TELL ME ABOUT YOUR SON ABRAHAM.I EXPECT WE CAN MEET SOON. ( Do not pay too much attention if you find errorsin my English. I am still trying to learn this difficult language.)Sincerely Héctor.

--- On Mon, 12/20/10, a.bolden <[email protected]> wrote:

From: a.bolden <[email protected]>Subject: The Company Explosion.docCc: "ABRAHAM W. BOLDEN,SR." <[email protected]>Date: Monday, December 20, 2010, 4:27 PM

Hector:

Here is a chapter of my book about the company explosion. When you have time, have your daughter to read it to you and see if there is anything that you want to add. If everything is just as it happened, send you o.k. by replying to this email. Your daughter will understand what I mean. I will see you later. I plan to visit you soon.

Abraham


the farley prophecy

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