What was going on when I was born?

NEW HAVEN THE Yale Center for British Art, having dealt with country houses from the 17th to 19th centuries, now turns its atten tion to the people who lived in them.

Cephus Miles, the hero of Samm-Art Williams's exult ant new play, "Home," at the Negro Ensemble Company, is an undereducated black North Carolina farmer, who is happy to remain in his homeland. Stephen Hurt, the hero of Peter Parnell's buoyant new comedy, ...

GARDEN CITY WANTED: People with a special concern for the environment to be trained to conduct small groups of children through woods, ponds and stream area of Long Island science museum. Hours: flexible; salary: the satisfaction of opening new worlds to youngsters.

Feelings of shock, sadness and disappointment were expressed yesterday by United States Olympic athletes and officials in response to President Carter's speech Friday night that warned of the possibility of an American withdrawal from the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5--Under orders from President Carter, Labor Secretary Ray Marshall has tightened the regulations for unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless in a way that will deny some of them extended benefits. The move is designed to save the Government hundreds of millions of dollars in 1980 and 1981.

WHITE PLAINS TWO and a half years ago, when the White Plains Board of Education announced its intent to reorganize the entire school district and close three elementary schools, public outrage reverberated through the city.

WASHINGTON--Next month, when television and radio coverage of the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid is flashed around the world, few outside the communications industry will be aware that the facilities of the Communications Satellite Corporation did the job.

We usually take winter vacations to stretch muscles gone slack from indoor living, but this year we had a winter holiday in Colonial Williamsburg and what we stretched there was our minds.

WASHINGTON PERHAPS as early as next month, Amtrak expects delivery of the first of 47 stubby, but powerful, Swedish-de signed electric locomotives that will operate at up to 120 miles an hour and ...

COMMACK FLEA markets, those agglomerations of plain, pipe-rack and cutrate merchandising counters and stalls, are springing up in more areas on the Island and are beginning to challenge traditional retailers, large and small, for shoppers' dollars.

WASHINGTON PERHAPS as early as February Amtrak expects delivery of the first of 47 stubby but powerful little Swedish-de signed electric locomotives that will operate at speeds up to 120 miles an hour as the future workhorses of the ...

The first snowstorm of the year swept over the New York metropolitan area yesterday, dropping two to four inches in the city and up to six inches in southern New Jersey. But the storm was not as severe as some forecasters had predicted, and it caused few problems on an otherwise quiet winter weekend.