Sixty-Two Years Later by Dr. John Ayoola Akinyemi

Sixty-Two Years Later by Dr. John Ayoola Akinyemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Heartfelt Rearview Mirror: Reflections on "Sixty-Two Years Later"...

Most memoirs these days feel a little too polished, too neat. But Dr. John Ayoola Akinyemi's Sixty-Two Years Later reads like catching up with an old friend over coffee—the kind who's lived a full life, laughed at the absurdity of it all, and come out the other side with something real to say.

Published in 2025 by The Eagle Literary, this slim book marks 62 years since Akinyemi landed in America at 21, a wide-eyed kid from Nigeria chasing an education in what he calls the "Land of Plenty." Now 83, he's not just telling his story—he's bringing us along, looking back through the rearview mirror while reminding us to appreciate what we've got.

The structure's simple—preface, four parts—but it unfolds like a fireside chat. Part 1 acknowledges America's immigrant soul, grounding us in who was here first. Part 2 gets personal: his journey from a "Land of Empty" to one full of promise, echoing threads from his earlier books Beyond 80 and I Am Scared, VERY SCARED! Part 3 is where it really hits—a meditation on what's changed (goodbye rotary phones, hello $5 gas) and what hasn't (the heart of "We the People"). He mixes humor with heartache: immigrant masons joking about building a "cathedral" while working on the Washington Cathedral, reflections on aging, the wild fact that Obama was a toddler when Akinyemi arrived. Time does that to you.

Part 4 turns tender. He revisits meeting Agnes, an 18-year-old Kenyan student who became his wife, and mourns her loss at 76. It's love stretched across continents and decades, raw and real. Woven through it all is advice for young scientists facing gutted research budgets—drawing from his NIH-funded PhD days, he tells them: innovate, adapt, maybe even look abroad. "Tough times don't last, but tough people do."

What sets this apart is Akinyemi's voice—warm, unpolished, effortlessly human. He's a biologist, a retired Marine vet, not a trained historian, and that's exactly the point. This is storytelling from the gut. Sure, the prose wanders sometimes, full of tangents and exclamation points, but that's him: generous, reflective, alive on the page. The photos at the end—birthdays, cruises, retirement toasts with Agnes—hit like flipping through a family album.

Sixty-Two Years Later is for anyone who's ever paused mid-day wondering where the years went. Immigrants, seniors, dreamers, the curious. In a fractured world, Akinyemi's stubborn love for America (flaws included) feels like exhaling.

This isn't just a book—it's a quiet push to look back with gratitude and forward with grit. Read it. Count your blessings. Let Dr. Akinyemi take the wheel. You'll come out wiser, maybe humming an old hymn. Highly recommended.

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