The camp chair went for $9.99 at Sunny's, one of these sling-back green polyester affairs that slips from a shoulder pouch and unfolds in a heartbeat, opening its arms to possibilities. Because this is America and the terrorists have not yet won, there's a cup holder at the right hand where the glass of bourbon goes.

Spending so little on the chair leaves a few more dollars for a bottle worthy of the occasion, seeing as how the universe allows us in a lifetime only so many quiet summer evenings. Mark the moment on the deck, terrace, patio, porch, wherever. Daylight in any case will drain languidly from the sky and the bourbon will slip smoothly from the bottle. Ice makes sense, no?

Bourbon adapts nicely to season: straight up and before a fire or snowy window in winter; over ice in summer in a spot where you can get what breeze there is to be had. As a matter of personal preference, I would do without the accompaniment of radio, television, stereo, VCR, DVD, telephone, pager, hand-held games and organizers. With luck, there's the wind rummaging through trees, perhaps a thunderstorm approaching or the cadence of some distant surf. Beat poet Gary Snyder captured the idea when he remarked on "arts of the Japanese: moon-watching/insect hearing ... "

Who knows how quiet it would have to be before you might hear the whiskey itself breathing in so many charred oak barrels in so many barns on the high ground of Kentucky and Tennessee? Summer is key in whiskey-making, a time when the distilled liquid expands into the wood, taking on the oak flavor that will be "exhaled" in winter.

The best stuff goes six, nine, 12 summers and more before it's ready for a glass. If it has come from Kentucky and been made from at least 51 percent corn, prepared without charcoal filtering, then legally it may be labeled bourbon. One writer calls it the "appellation wine of American whiskeys."

More than a few observers will celebrate the fact that bourbon connoisseurs have not quite caught up with their wine-drinking counterparts in linguistic extravagance. A few words will generally cover the ground as aficionados attempt to convey the essence of these spirits. "Caramel" comes up often enough, as does "smoky." Once you get to "vanilla," you're nearly going too far.

Words fail. Suffice to say that it is to be sipped, not gulped, so that the nose and the tongue share the experience. Taste, after all, is only one dimension of this summer pleasure.

The terrace of my relentlessly unpicturesque apartment building faces south, into a small stand of trees - more of a little bouquet of trees, really - that screens some of the view and noise of the road. As the light fades on the right-hand side of the picture, the traffic also diminishes.

This must be what Bernard DeVoto meant when he referred to the "vanishing-away," a time to be shared with close companions in some nicely appointed bar, or at least in a comfortable bargain camp chair and with a respectable bourbon. Some illusion of stillness is the modest ambition as the summer rushes ruthlessly on.