I met Rolf Godon sampling savory prosciutto and Parmesan waffles for a mutual friend, who was testing recipes for the opening of his new business. Godon has lived in Truckee full time for the last 42 years and had been coming here to ski from the Bay Area with his family for the last 70 years.
Rolf Godon and his life partner, Tanzy Maxfield.
“We use to come in the mid 40s and stay at the Clair Tappaan Lodge and ski with the Sierra Club at Signal Hill. We used a rope tow. We’d ski there and Sugar Bowl,” he explains. By the 1950s, Godon was patrolling at Signal Hill and after he got married, his two kids would join him while he was on ski patrol. “They were about 6 and 8 at the time,” he recalled.
Godon was a teacher in Fort Bragg, where he taught biology, forestry, math and coached track and eventually became a psychologist along the way.
[blockquote3]
“Before Alpine Meadows was a ski area,
we climbed the ridge between Alpine and Squaw
and skied down KT to sneak into
the (1960 Winter) Olympics.”
[/blockquote3]
In 1960, he tried out for the Olympics for cross-country skiing. “They were looking for candidates and I was on their list. I tried out, but never made it,” says Godon. But that didn’t stop him from being there, “Before Alpine Meadows was a ski area, we climbed the ridge between Alpine and Squaw and skied down KT to sneak into the Olympics,” he admitted. He recalled witnessing the 60s Olympic downhill and slalom events. “Truckee was the only downtown at that time,” he adds.
In 1972, Godon moved to India. He took a job as school psychologist that primarily taught children whose parents worked at the embassy in New Delhi. He moved to Tahoe City in 1974 and initially worked for a drug education program that served both Tahoe City and Truckee high schools.
In the late 70s, Godon purchased a lot in Tahoe Donner and built a spec house. He needed a change from psychology. He admits it was an interesting adventure. He learned to build and construct a house from the bottom up. He built four more homes in the area and eventually bought a cabin on the west end of Donner Lake near the creek.
“I traded the cabin for 25 acres to a lawyer who gotten it as a fee,” he explains. Godon sold it to a pot grower and had some frustrating years trying to get paid.
“Eventually the couple divorced and I sold it to someone else,” he explained.
Godon went into private practice and bought a rundown shack on Riverside Drive in downtown Truckee on the river where he lives today.
“The river was used as a dump back then and there was an old septic tank on the property. Every time Truckee burned, they pushed the debris into the river,” said Godon. The caveat to the purchase was that the woman who lived on the property was grandfathered into the deal. “Rosie lived in the ramshackle remnants of garage on the property. She was a white-haired, Italian lady whose definition of exercise was crossing the train tracks and drinking and dancing at the Pastime Club,” he said.
Godon retired in May at 80 years old. He and his life partner, Tanzy Maxfield, have been together since 1980. He’s practiced Chi Qigong for the last 15 years, which he says is a wonderful practice. He teaches classes at the both the Truckee Rec Center and the Senior Center. He has a large vegetable garden in his backyard and, according to friend Abby Polus, “He makes a killer smoked salmon.”
His latest project is helping to raise funds for the Veterans Center, which is in need of major repairs. He remains active in politics. “I want to see good people run for town council. I helped get Morgan Goodwin elected. He’s young, smart and balanced,” said Godon.
“I’ve seen Truckee from its redneck days to its current foofoo days,” he remarks of the current tenor of the town. “If I had my preference, I’d go back 40 years when Truckee was fun, you could drink in the streets and Bar of America was a big dance hall,” he mused.
