By ED OFFLEY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Lakewood and Fort Lewis are places of unexpected contrasts.

The Army base presents an ordered, brick-and-lawn image out of Norman Rockwell. The town center is clustered around a massive shopping complex on one end. Then there is the spic-and-span lawn of Watkins Field parade ground, where 15,000 soldiers can assemble with room for another battalion or two thrown in. But between the town and the lush greenbelts ringing the base are tank-maneuvering trails and artillery impact areas.

Lakewood, on the other hand, is fenced off by industrial blight and poor street design, its mayor laments.

Invisible from the I-5 corridor are the necklace of deep freshwater lakes that give Lakewood much of its charm and character. The shores of American Lake, Gravelly Lake and Steilacoom Lake are strung by old residential estates dating before the turn of the century, and the quiet roads and lanes are a riot of color from rhododendrons and roses.

At American Lake North Park, just down the road from the massive American Lake Veterans Hospital complex, the roar of truck traffic on I-5 vanishes, replaced by the quiet hum of a distant floatplane taking off and the sounds of a small flock of Canada geese winging its way across the water.