Sandy Charnes out of uniform.
Lisa Konikow: "You have to fall a lot in Aikido. And I hate falling."
26
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1990
Where masses of people
congregate, the mission of
"the mounted" is crowd con-
trol. The officers on horseback
go first, Charnes says.
"The horses are so in-
timidating. They're big. You
can really keep people back.
We carry big sticks on our
horses that we call 'be cool
sticks.' We can pull them out
and people say, 'I'm cool. No
problem. I'm cool. "
When Charnes starts pro-
viding biographical notes, it's
clear it isn't at all a penchant
for power that motivates her.
The overriding forces in her
life appear to be a true love
for animals and a spirited af-
fection for people.
Charnes, 26, was born in
Detroit, the daughter of
Margie and Allen Charnes.
She says she and her two
older sisters had many small
pets while growing up — but
they dreamed of having
horses.
When the family moved to
West Bloomfield, about 15
years ago, Charnes became a
regular at Roy's Ranch. Then,
during her college years at
Ferris State where she
studied pharmacy, Charnes
bought her first horse, Liber-
ty Bell, a leopard appaloosa.
Whenever academia press-
ed too hard, Charnes would
take off on "Libby," riding Big
Rapids trails, until she was
ready to face pharmacy again.
She graduated in 1986 and
now works as a pharmacist
for Arbor Drugs.
But her prescription for
happiness still seems to read:
Animals. Charnes shares her
Walled Lake house with two
cats and two dogs, Sonny, a
golden retriever who wears a
bandana that says, "mon cher
chien," and Butch, a black
lab, jauntily attired in a blue-
and-gold University of
Michigan running suit.
The walls of Charnes' living
room are filled with pictures
of dogs. On the floor stands a
footlocker that contains the
latest in canine haute
couture. "I spent 45 minutes
at a clothes store dressing up
my dogs," Charnes says. "Peo-
ple were corning in and
laughing."
Charnes' horses are
boarded near Twelve Oaks.
Caring for all her beloved
creatures makes for a busy
schedule.
"I get up at 5 a.m. to get out
to clean three horse stalls
before I go to work." She also
goes up north to haul hay
back for the horses and
travels all the way to Big
Rapids to get the kind of hair-
cuts she likes for her dogs.
It's not a lifestyle that ap-
peals to everyone, Charnes
says. And when Charnes first
proclaimed her intention to
join the mounted unit, her
family's initial reaction was
less than enthusiastic.
"They were very upset," she
says. "My mother was aghast.
My father said, 'a gun?' My
grandmother said, 'Jewish
people don't do this kind of
thing.' "
But her uncle, Howard
Elias, furnished a truck so
Charnes could pull her horse
trailer. And in time, Charnes
says, her whole family came
around — proudly attending
parades, with her mother
snapping pictures, directing
her daughter, the police-
woman, to smile.
Charnes says that her
mother's change of heart
seemed to begin right around
the time she learned that
Charnes' captain in the
mounted was a Jewish at-
torney — who happened to
have an unmarried son
Charnes' age.
Recalling all that's hap-
pened along her trails,
Charnes is consistently
upbeat and effervescent.
"I'm very lucky," she says.
"I'm very independent. I do
my own thing. This is going to
last me a lifetime.
"Eventually it would be
nice to get married and have
two kids." But for right now,
she's looking for a small farm
where she can keep her
horses in her own backyard.
L
isa Konikow lives
in a 100-year-old
house on a rustic
lot in Franklin.
Out front is a red
barn, the original work place
of the village blacksmith.
Inside the white frame
house the old is giving way to
the new — a conversion in
style from early blacksmith
to contemporary Konikow.
There's colorful art on the
aged walls and a well-stocked
bookshelf next to a woodburn-
ing stove.
Making the century-old
house comfortable and livable
has been a gradual and ar-
duous task, Konikow says.
Another choice of housing
might have been more conve-
nient. But Konikow is not one
to go for the easy or general-
ly prescribed route in either
living quarters or life.
Konikow is a certified
teacher and practitioner of
Aikido, a martial art based on
Samurai swordsmanship.
"Aikido is not competitive,
not a sport. It's a discipline,"
she says.
Putting on her dogi, a
heavy white cotton martial
arts jacket, and picking up
her ebony bokken, a wooden
sword, Konikow says. "One of
the things I love is you have
K