“What happened to the Saints?” I have been asked on several occasions recently. Especially after Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay.

If they only knew how little I know about football, they’d not bother to ask. I follow the fake instead of the ball carrier three times out of four, even when I’m watching on close-up, high-def TV. Works much better on me than the defense.

But that doesn’t stop me from having an opinion.

I think the Saints’ downhill slide started four to six weeks ago when fans elevated quarterback Drew Brees to “Breesus.” Tee-shirts appeared imprinted “WWBD — What Would Breesus Do?”

It’s been downhill since.

Last Sunday’s game with the Bucs was the one we’d bought tickets for many weeks ago. My son and his two boys went and enjoyed the madness if not the outcome. Nothing like a home game in the Dome. Nelson, our younger grandson, got so close to the action that he caught a misdirected elbow when two overwrought Dats started swinging at each other in the stands.

We had our own version of “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” as our daughter, Mary, and her husband, Phil, came on different schedules by plane for a New Orleans Christmas visit, to be immediately followed by a visit from our older son and his family.

Mary left by plane Saturday — the day after the Nigerian attempted to blow up the plane landing in Detroit — to return to Milwaukee. Naturally, most of the talking heads prior to her departure were obsessed with the story of the thwarted bomber. Naturally the obsessing upped Mary’s level of her anxiety over her flight as well as passing through the enhanced security she anticipated at the airport.

Not so in New Orleans. After we dropped Phil at the Amtrak station for a trip to Greenwood where he would be met by his parents, Lowell and Linda Taylor, we dropped Mary off at Armstrong field three hours early.

The airport was not crowded, she later reported to us by phone. And the security that she passed through was still on New Orleans time, yawning as she passed through the scanning devices, she said.

Then, of course, her departure from was delayed for an hour beyond its scheduled departure.

Late that afternoon John Jr. and his family arrived — by auto. After the Saints game on Sunday, we learned that all the Audubon attractions are closed on Monday. That’s the zoo, the aquarium and the newly opened insectarium (“insectasylum,” my wife dubbed it.)

That left the D-Day Museum — now the National World War II Museum. On earlier visits I never made it through the entire museum in one trip, and it has been expanded considerably since then.

During Monday’s trip we — Rosemary and I with three grandchildren from age eight to 15 — saw even less. The place was so crowded with leftover Dats, early Sugar Bowl arrivals plus the usual holiday tourist crush that we had to squeeze past other visitors to get from one feature to the next.

And it was great! Each of us left with a greater appreciation for the museum itself and the sacrifices of the generation it honors.