What was going on when I was born?

CONFIRMING widespread concern about another severe onslaught of gypsy moths, hundreds of area residents turned out recently at two public seminars to hear entomologists, foresters and conservationists discuss methods of controlling the destructive insect. Scores of people attended an all-day symposium last weekend at the State University of New York at Purchase, sponsored by the National Audubun Society, the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County, the Connecticut Audubon Society and the New York Downstate Audubon Council. Earlier this month, a standing-room-only crowd of 200 filled the Greenwich, Conn., Town Hall for a two-hour session sponsored by the town's Conservation Commission and the Greenwich Audubon Society. ''Lots of people are afraid of losing their trees and want to know what to do to save them,'' said Charles Upham, chairman of the Conservation Commission, ''while a lot of people are concerned about the dangers of pesticide use and what it will do to the environment. These people wanted to hear what was going to be done. Many are caught right in the middle. There's no magic solution.''

EVEN before he discovered supply-side theory, President Reagan liked to use broad brush strokes and bold colors to paint an idealized economic landscape. Therein, hardy capitalists, cheerful workers and an inherently fair free market produced inevitable prosperity, while enlightened local officials and private charities cared for the poor until they got their share of the economic pie. From time to time, filling in the details confounded Mr. Reagan, as when he proposed in 1976 that state governments take over $90 billion worth of social programs, but neglected to calculate where the money would come from. ''That's when he learned that in a campaign you can't start earmarking programs,'' a White House aide, Michael K. Deaver, recalled recently. A President, unlike a candidate, cannot gloss over painful details. That became clear in the last two weeks as Congressional critics, outraged constituent groups and mainstream economists have teamed up to point out what they regard as flaws in the President's economic recovery program.

''You have to know when you've had your hour, your place in the sun,'' Miss Stanwyck said on a springlike day in her 73d year. ''I pity an actor who doesn't understand that.'' Her hair is silver - but it has been silver for more than 30 years. When it turned prematurely gray, she refused to dye it, just as she refused to lie about her age. ''Everybody said, 'Oh, my God, no actress can have white hair. No one wants to make love to a grayhaired lady.' Everybody said, 'To be over 40 isn't possible.' To be old is death here. I think it's kind of silly. Be glad you're healthy. Be glad you can get out of bed on your own.'' Ironically, on the eve of being honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center on April 13 for 35 years of achievement, she looks extraordinarily lovely, with porcelain skin and a figure that has not varied one pound or one inch for nearly 50 years. A golden horse with a flaming mane is pinned to her magenta jacket and its bridled vitality is echoed in her own chiseled features. She started the day, as she always does, by walking half a mile on the slanted treadmill that dominates her bedroom. An exercise bicycle is now relegated to the garage because it was ''too easy.'' The uphill treadmill is more satisfying work.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- MIKE EDWARDS is a Washington-based journalist who travels as much as six months a year. By MIKE EDWARDS It was no big deal, that request I made one morning in the dining room of the Grand Hotel Park in Dubrovnik. I just wanted an egg. As I sat down, the waiter brought juice, coffee, a roll and a tot of jam. Two hundred or so German tourists seated around me were breakfasting on this same spartan Continental fare. I was accustomed to a bit more substance. ''One egg, please, soft-boiled.'' The waiter shook his head. ''Egg is not on the menu for the group.'' ''But I am not with the group. I am alone.'' He regarded me with surprise, if not suspicion. ''Not with the group?'' His tone suggested there was no such thing as a nongroup traveler. Not in this hotel on Yugoslavia's Adriatic littoral, crammed with Germans on package tours. He vanished - never to return with an egg. I knew that once more I had been grouped.

Matt Doherty happily pulled the ''North Carolina'' sign off the locker-room door after the Tar Heels' 82-68 victory over Kansas State in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's West Regional basketball final today. ''I want something to remember from here,'' said Doherty, a freshman from East Meadow, L.I. In winning the 10th of their last 11 games and reaching the Final Four next weekend in Philadelphia, North Carolina showed too much strength, depth and versatility for the Wildcats. Everyone expected that Al Wood, James Worthy and Sam Perkins, the Tar Heels' inside trio, might be more than Kansas State could handle, even with Rolando Blackman. And they were, scoring 52 points among them and dominating as they did Thursday night when they helped to end Utah's 17-game winning streak at the Special Events Center here.

THE Hudson River Museum, faced with a possible closing next month because of a budget deficit, began working with county officials last week in an effort to raise emergency funds. In addition, it appointed a new director, Peter Langlykke, who pledged that the museum would resolve its financial problems. The board of trustees has announced that it can not meet the museum payroll after April 15 and that there is a projected $105,000 deficit in the budget year that ends June 30. But the museum's newly elected president, Andrew Balint, a Yonkers attorney, said the immediate problem ''can be overcome.'' He added, however, ''If the City of Yonkers intends to eliminate or reduce its support, that is really serious.'' Yonkers now provides about 40 percent of the museum's $1 million annual budget, including direct cash contributions of about $175,000 and a number of in-kind services such as fuel and debt service. The current deficit in the city's budget, however, is estimated at more than $6 million.

Foreign affairs boils down to them and us, Alexander M. Haig Jr. told Congress last week. In his first public testimony on Capitol Hill since his confirmation as Secretary of State, Mr. Haig described a bipolar world in which human rights, nuclear proliferation, South African apartheid and other Carter Administration concerns henceforth would be subordinate to containing and turning back Soviet influence in the developing world. ''It does no good to pretend in our policies or our proclamations that that (Soviet activity) is not the most serious threat to world peace we're facing today,'' Mr. Haig told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Behind by two goals at the end of a frustrating first period, the New York Rangers turned the game around with a four-goal burst in the second period and went on to defeat the Hartford Whalers, 6-4, tonight in the Civic Center before a sellout crowd of 14,510. The victory was the Rangers' third straight and ended their sevengame losing streak on the road. It also gave the Rangers the season series, 3-1, over the Whalers. Ron Duguay scored two goals in the second period for New York and assisted on a goal in the third. Duguay, playing his normal role as a penalty killer with Dean Talafous, had to do double duty when the center Ulf Nilsson suffered a recurrence of a slight muscle pull in his groin early in the second period.

President Reagan, although a longtime supporter of the Nationalist Government on Taiwan, has made a personal effort in recent days to reassure China that his Administration is committed to carrying out the agreement to establish normal relations that was negotiated by the Carter Administration, Administration officials said today. The decision by Mr. Reagan to affirm his commitment to the normalization agreement and to seek an improvement in relations is regarded by some officials as one of the Administration's first major actions, even though it has received relatively little public attention up to now. Because of Mr. Reagan's past criticism of the normalization agreement and his comments during the campaign indicating a desire to upgrade relations with Taiwan, the Chinese viewed the advent of his Administration with considerable concern, officials said. The Taiwanese, whose formal ties to Washington were severed at the same time as the agreement was reached with China, were anticipating some major symbolic gesture from the White House to reflect Mr. Reagan's sentiments.

CONNECTICUT is one of 10 states under a Federal court order to reduce overcrowding in its prisons and jails. But a report this month by the Governor's Task Force on Jail and Prison and Overcrowding indicated that complying with that order will likely be difficult and expensive. The panel found that there was overcrowding at every one of the state's 10 correctional facilities. The state's institutions, designed to house 3,477 people, now hold about 700 more than that. And though more beds are scheduled to be added next year, the study group predicted that by 1985 ''the total population of 7,000 inmates would effectively be 78 percent above the planned system capacity.''

SINCE the Reagan Administration unwrapped its 1982 spending package late last month, the Island's Capitol Hill legislators have been calculating its potential impact on the region. Within Mr. Reagan's plan to shift budget priorities, they say, there are spending cuts that would have a particular impact on the Island, including reduced aid to mass transportation and highway construction and maintenance projects. In addition, they point to the proposed curtailment of such services as Medicaid and the school lunch program and a lowering of the family income level for college loan applicants. Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, Republican of Island Park, and most of the Island's Republican Congressional delegation have expressed solid support for the majority of the Reagan budget cuts. All of them, however, back challenges in a few areas, but there is no indication at this time of how successful they will be in softening the impact of the cuts.

The morning sun is starting to rise over the wooden light poles of Al Lopez Field, and down below Johnny Bench is running sprints from the left-field foul line to the ''Holmes Nursery and Gardens'' sign in right-center field. In the white uniform and red baseball cap with bill turned backwards, his husky body crosses the field low to the ground, like a tank. Sweat rolls down his broad face and over the hump of tobacco in his cheek. While other players in the Cincinnati Reds camp here run nearby in clumps, Bench runs alone. For Bench, this is an odd period in his distinguished career. He feels, he says, like a fish out of water. At one point over the winter Bench informed Dick Wagner, Reds' president and chief executive officer, that he would not continue as the club's full-time catcher, and that he desired to play a different position. Not many are open on the Reds, a rather solid, pennant-contending club. Bench's stance has cast a certain air of suspense in the Reds' training camp.