Really serious partying was reserved for extended holidays such as Thanksgiving, Easter, or other shorter, three-day breaks. Here the various alumni clubs, particularly Chicago's, sprang into importance by sponsoring dances which were much bigger and more uninhibited events than anything held on campus. The Indiana turnpike, which would cut the trip to just under two hours, was just under construction, and the other current alternative, Interstate 94, did not yet exist. "Our connection to Chicago was via the electric South Shore Train Line, which took about two hours to downtown Chicago," says Myers. "As my parents at the time lived in Oak Park, on the western fringe of Chicago, I frequently brought a couple of friends, including Bellairs, home for such weekends. John at the time was shy and awkward around girls and never dated. Therefore, when the rest of us would go out on a dance night he would stay at home with my parents and play chess or scrabble with them."

Like most college kids Bellairs and Myers were movie freaks and even in a remote place such as South Bend one could find foreign films, which were coming into vogue then. "That was the era when theaters with outlandish, exotic decor were being built all over the country. Wherever John and I visited, I simply don't remember either its name or decor, despite having seen dozens of movies there over the course of four years (see Alhambra Theatre)," recalls Myers. "We saw in first run or revival all the great Alec Guinness comedies from Kind Hearts and Coronets to The Horse's Mouth, with The Ladykillers being a particular favorite. We also appreciated a number of the early Italian realist films, the early French New Wave, and of course the early movies of Satan's emissary, Brigitte Bardot. I remember how overwhelmed we were by Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, which was virtually unheralded in its first release. In any event, our years at Notre Dame passed in relative tranquility."

Pizza was one food of choice and South Bend had an asortment of pizzerias to choose from. "The pizza parlor of choice for our particular group was a rather drab family-run place in downtown South Bend called Febbo's," Myers remembers. "It was not at all a college hangout, and few students other than our own group ever frequented it. We liked it because it had a large game table of what I guess you could call table shuffleboard, which we used to play by the hour. Also, the Febbo family was not too particular about such niceties as requiring official identification cards in return for the odd glass of beer." The pizzeria closest to campus was Frankie's and perhaps because of that it was quite the popular gathering place. "God knows why," Myers adds. "Most people have a recollection of some place in their youth which served the best pizza in the world. Take it from me, Frankie's pizzas were the worst! Tasteless and as hard as manhole covers!"

In their senior year, Bellairs and company would make frequent visits to Cecil's. "I think it was there that our drink of choice was the Depth Charge, which cost a quarter and consisted of a 16-ounce glass of Big D (for Drury's) beer, absolutely the worst beer ever brewed in the history of the world, served with a shotglass of whiskey of equally questionable provenance. We would drop the entire shot glass, right side up, into the beer glass, then, bottoms up!" Myers recalls.

Being an old and distinguished educational institution, Notre Dame played host to many noted visitors in a wide range of different fields – religion, of course, but music, theatre, political science, military science, and more. Some of the more noteworthy attendees during Bellairs' four years included:

• Eddie Fisher and wife, Debbie Reynolds (September 30, 1955)
• Noted Catholic lay theologian and author Frank Sheed (Fall 1955)
• Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-MN) (December 1955)
• Singer, lecturer, and educator Zelma Watson George (Fall 1955)
• His Beatitude Maximos IV, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East (October 1955)
• General Curtis E. LeMay, Patriot of the Year for 1955-56
• During the 1956 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon was the only candidate on either ticket to visit Notre Dame. Myers says that Bellairs related to him with amusement the fact that Frank O'Malley had dismissed his students early so they could witness Nixon's arrival with the remark that, after all, "it wasn't every day that the Beast of the Apocalypse came to the campus."
• Robert F. Kennedy, Patriot of the Year for 1957-58.
• Varel and Bailly with the Chanteurs de Paris, a European vocal group (March 1, 1958)
• Dave Brubeck Quartet (Spring 1959)
• The Kingston Trio (Spring 1959)
• Wernher von Braun, Patriot of the Year for 1958-59

There was also the various campus cultural offerings, with one standout being the NBC Opera Company visit to St. Mary's during Bellairs' freshman year. "In one day they presented two operas sung in English, La Traviata in the afternoon and The Marriage of Figaro in the evening. After a lifetime of addiction to classical music I can now appreciate what splendid theatrical experiences these were, but Bellairs and I were both classical neophytes at the time. We attended both operas. I remember that John liked La Traviata well enough but was not expecting much from Figaro. Of course he wound up being entranced by it, as audiences have been for more than 200 years," notes Myers, adding he cannot imagine a television network maintinaing its own opera company today. Another memorable event was the visit of Louis Armstrong. "This was the era of his great album Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy. He performed to a packed crowd in Notre Dame's old basketball gymnasium and had the audience eating out of his hand. He reserved his singer, the formidable Velma Middleton, until the second half of his concert. She and Louis were outrageous together, doing splits on stage and Uncle-Tomming it in general, but with fabulous wit. They were great entertainers, and more importantly, great musicians."

As far as music was concerned, Bellairs had no particular talent but could more or less carry a tune and would sometimes, we’re told, sing stanzas of his favorite song while strumming an imaginary guitar. Bellairs had a strong interest in folk music, as well as classical, with Richard Dyer-Bennett being one of his favorite singers. Dyer-Bennett visited the Notre Dame campus February 21, 1958, and we’re told Bellairs later met Dyer-Bennett, escorting him around either Notre Dame or another one of the campuses where Bellairs later taught. Myers remembers The Vicar of Bray being one of Bellairs’ favorite songs, one about a churchman who survives the several waves of English religious wars by shifting his allegiances in order to keep his job.

Bellairs says on his application to teach at Indiana University Northwest that his previous teaching and research experience included being a tutor in English at Notre Dame during his sophomore year. Around this same time he also worked in the cafeteria to supplement his finances.