Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005 | 9:46 a.m.
In the few weeks we've lived here, my neighbors remain mostly a mystery to me.
I only see the fellow across the street when he pulls into his immaculate garage and pulls golf clubs out of his trunk. I'm jealous.
Next door is a young couple (he drives a plumber's truck) and, so far, we only have waved.
And we met the neighbor on the other side -- Ernie -- the day we moved in, when he brought a chewy treat over for our big white poodle, Duke. We haven't seen him since. (Ernie, not Duke.)
But I doubt any of my neighbors is more fascinating than Pirro Dollani, who lives down the street.
He and his wife, Elfrida, were taking a morning walk the other day when they saw me wrestling with a broken sprinkler head. I was on my knees, quietly cursing, my spirit broken, my fingers tender from digging in the rocky soil.
"Let me help you," Pirro said after introducing himself. "I fixed a sprinkler head just last week. I went to Home Depot and got the right tools. That's what you need. Let me get mine. I can fix your sprinkler head."
He said it with great pride, the way a scientist might say, "I can fix your rocket ship."
He hustled home and returned with a tool that, in the wrong hands, could hurt someone. He said this is the one tool he has mastered.
"I am not very mechanical," he said. "If something in my house needs repair, Elfrida sends me out of the house, and then she fixes it. But this, I can fix."
And then, as he fiddled with the sprinkler head, he told his story.
He grew up in Albania and, to escape a crowded house with six siblings, sought refuge at the local library. It molded his future: He earned a master's degree in library science; became a high school literature teacher; managed the library in Durres, Albania; and helped build another one.
In 1994 he won a fellowship to study at the University of Illinois, and when it was completed he and Elfrida stayed in the United States. "I wanted to give my children the best education in the world," he said, "and that was in this country."
An American-born cousin insisted that Pirro and his family join him in Las Vegas. They learned too late that the fellow was all but homeless and could offer no support.
By now, Pirro's visa had expired and he lacked the necessary documents to get a job. So he volunteered at a Mormon genealogy library in exchange for housing for himself, his wife and their teenage children. Lacking a work permit, he earned cash by going door-to-door in search of odd jobs. He washed windows and cleaned out garages.
(As Pirro talked, he inspected the sprinkler the way a jeweler examines a fine watch.)
For better money, Pirro landed an off-the-books job at a pizza joint, bluffing that he knew how to make dough, bread sticks and garlic bread. And in short order, he became quite good at it.
One day a lawyer told Pirro he needed a student visa to remain in the country legally. So he enrolled at UNLV and, with his library skills and career accomplishments from Albania, landed a scholarship through a local foundation.
To support his family while going to college as a 45-year-old freshman, Pirro took a 20-hour-a-week job at the campus library, in addition to his 40-hour-a-week graveyard shift at the pizzeria. And, in the meantime, he earned straight A's.
And get this, he said: On the last day of spring-semester finals, his name was picked in a federal immigration lottery to get a green card.
"This was a fairy tale," he said.
("See the gravel at the bottom of the sprinkler head," Pirro said, interrupting his own story. "That is the problem, my friend." He banged it on the sidewalk to loosen the pebbles.)
Pirro quit school for a job at the Stratosphere as a greeter. His wife already worked there, operating the elevator that whisks tourists to the top.
But Pirro missed the academic environment, so he got a job at UNLV, working first in an office for international students and then taking a better-paying job as an administrative assistant in the film department.
Pirro manages daily operations and the department's budget on behalf of its chairman, Francisco Menendez. "I don't think people on campus fully appreciate Pirro. He's my right-hand man," Menendez said. "He brings to the job not only hard work but a great amount of intelligence."
Pirro returned to the classroom, too, earning a bachelor's degree with honors in English literature, and then a master's degree in English as a Second Language.
Since then, he has taken side jobs as a translater. Among his accomplishments: translating "Coffeehouse Days" by renowned Albanian author Ismail Kadare into English.
His children, meanwhile, are doing great. With an art degree, his daughter works with the traveling museum exhibit, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs." His son parlayed his master's degree in marketing to land a job in Dallas with Brach's Candy. Pirro and Elfrida are immensely proud.
Pirro, now 55, hopes to get hired at the UNLV Library. "That is where I belong," he said. "Libraries are my passion."
We tested the sprinkler. There was no leak, and Pirro was jubilant.
"Fixing a sprinkler," he says, "is the only thing that I know how to do."
I love this neighbor of mine.
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