What was going on when I was born?

A fundamental change is apparently taking place in the nation's appetite for electricity. Since 1974 Americans have been using far less electricity than the utility industry had expected, and now some analysts expect the rate of growth to fall even further in the future.

Negotiators for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the striking transit workers failed to break their deadlock in face-to-face talks yesterday. They planned to return to the bargaining table tonight to prepare for a major effort this week to settle the crippling walkout.

John Rubinstein is probably the only actor who has had to learn a foreign language in order to perform a play written in his native tongue. Mr. Rubinstein, who created the title role in the hit ...

PLAINVIEW CHANNEL 21, the Island's UHF public television station, will open a 12-day fund-raising drive tomorrow in an effort to erase a $257,000 deficit--an amount so large that the station's new chief executive said it would force the cancellation of Channel 21's locally produced programs and the dismissal of half the staff of 36 if the debt was not paid off by June 30.

Many homeowners in the metropolitan region who decided to switch to gas in 1979 found there were delays of from three weeks to four months in the processing of their applications by utility companies. Also, many homeowners said they had to go on long waiting lists. Others had to wait up to two months after equipment was installed for utility representatives to hook them up.

ACROSS Connecticut, residents of Ukrainian descent have been busy for weeks preparing to celebrate Easter, the most joyous of feasts, in compli ance with Old World traditions.

WASHINGTON THEY can burn it, compact it, compost it or use it to restore landscapes ravaged by strip mining, but please, says Rep resentative William J. Hughes, stop dumping it in the Atlantic, specifically off New Jersey's precious shore areas.

I HAVE known Thomas Berger since 1958, when his first novel "Crazy in Berlin," was published. I reviewed it favorably, some acquaintances ar ranged an introduction, and that led to a friendship. In those years Tom was supporting himself as a freethose copy editor, having worked before that as an editor at Popular Science.

WASHINGTON, April 5--After seeing their hopes for a breakthrough last week rise and fall in the space of a few days, ranking United States officials say that they are again resigned to a prolongation of the hostage crisis in Iran, which began its sixth month today.

Like an alert general, George Steinbrenner blitzed the enemy only weeks after the close of the baseball season with a series of rapid-fire player moves. A general, though, is only as good as the troops that execute his strategy, so it is up to the Yankees to make Steinbrenner look good this season.

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. "I TOLD them," Jerry Della Femina said, tattling on his newest client, the New York Mets, "that they could use a good third baseman more than an advertising agency."

SOUTHAMPTON--Late on a recent slategray afternoon as the wind was rolling in over the deserted dunes, Eugene Francavilla stood resting a weary elbow against the reception desk of his Colonial Shores Motel along West Tiana Road. Despite an eye-catching "winter rentals" sign at the roadside, the day had been characterized by hours of silence punctuated only by the occasional arrival of a seabird in the empty marina. Not a car or a customer in sight.