Donald, Jr.is 39 yrs old, so this would have been around 36 yrs ago, 1981.
Does this journalist REALLY have a friend who was teaching NYC pre-school in 1981?????? AND who really had Donald, Jr. in her group/class, and this really happened????
Color me skeptical.
I find that the writer, Virginia Heffernan, graduated from college in 1991. Her “friend” “Anna” (who may or may not exist) has to be at least 10 yrs older to have been teaching pre-school in 1981. Could be considerably more than 10 yrs older, since surely not every teacher has their best anecdote occur straight out of college. Anna could be 15, 20, 25 yrs older, if she really exists.
Also, until 2002 it looks like Virginia Heffernan was pursuing graduate school and a PhD in English Lit at Harvard (Cambridge, MA), so she may well not have been living in NYC until after 2002.
Yet, somehow she knows a considerably older woman who just happens to have been in NYC back in 1981 and who just happens to have had Donald, Jr. in pre-school. None of this is impossible, I’m simply saying that it seems very unlikely. How many journalists know many pre-school teachers, especially those considerably older? It just does not seem like the odds are in favor of this story panning out.