What was going on when I was born?

In the 1960's, when gasoline was cheap and highperformance cars ruled the roads, songs were written about Pontiacs. In fact, a tune by Ronnie and the Daytonas extolling the engine of the Pontiac GTO rose as high as No.4 on the pop music charts in 1964. But emission controls and vastly more expensive gasoline ended the high-performance era and cost the Pontiac Motor Division of the General Motors Corporation the youth image it carefully nurtured through the 1960's. ''For awhile there it was almost unpatriotic to drive a performance car,'' said William E. Hoglund, the general manager of Pontiac. ''That made it hard on a division identified with performance. As a result our image became diffused as we tried to chase the cars that were successful.''

Europe's auto makers are encouraged by Japan's moves to cut car exports to the U.S.: They think this will make it easier or their governments to extract similar concessions from Japan. (Page D1.) Utilities are rapidly expanding into nonutility ventures to broaden their earnings base. But diversification raises questions about regulation of the subsidiaries and whether their earnings should be applied toward lower bills for utility customers. (D1.)

European auto makers welcomed Japan's decision to reduce car exports to the United States, saying they were now more optimistic that their governments would press for similar cuts and that Japan would agree. ''The United States is setting the pattern for Europe and it's a pattern the Japanese industry understands and will accept,'' said John Weinthal, a spokesman for the British Society of Automotive Manufacturers. ''It's a good agreement for the U.S. and an important precedent for Europe,'' was the reaction of a spokesman for Renault, the French state-owned car and truck manufacturer. Officals at the European Economic Community said that they now hoped that Japan would agree to a similar pact with the 10-nation trade bloc, even though Japan's 11 percent average share of the community's auto market is only half the 20 percent market share that Japan enjoys in the United States.

An increasing number of New Yorkers have taken to the streets with flashlights and walkie-talkies in volunteer neighborhood patrols against crime. Encouraged by the police, neighborhood groups cruise in their cars every night or walk their blocks, spurred by the fear of rising crime and reductions in the police force. The patrols, most of which are in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, have more than doubled in the last year, according to city officials, who estimate their number at 10,000. Men and women, teen-agers and elderly people, lawyers and mail clerks share the duty.

President Reagan's chief economic adviser, Murray L. Weidenbaum, says there is no reason to expect the planned build-up of military spending in the next several years to cause a new surge of inflation. This assertion by the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, in an interview earlier last week, is part of what appears to be a widening debate about the Reagan proposition that Congress can pass a three-year tax cut, vote for bigger defense appropriations and still be confident that inflation will slow appreciably in the next few years. So far, the debate has been couched largely in terms of aggregates such as total spending, the size of a tax cut and the size of the economy. But a second line of criticism is also emerging: that any shift of resources from civilian to military use tends to drive up costs and the general price level. Some Reagan economists heatedly dispute this view.

A national survey of purchasing managers released yesterday indicates the nation's industrial economy improved in April, as key indicators such as production, incoming new orders and employment gained from the previous month. Charles T. Haffey, a vice president of Pfizer Inc. and survey chairman of the National Association of Purchasing Management, said that for the second month in a row, more of the surveyed members said their companies' employment rose from the previous month.

A decade ago, when the ''green revolution'' produced ''miracle'' wheat and rice, crop yields jumped dramatically throughout the developing world. But because the new seed required the heavy use of costly fertilizer, the wealthiest, large-scale farmers and their urban customers were the main beneficiaries, while the poorest peasants remained as destitute as before. In response, some of the scientists responsible for the green revolution turned their attention to the plight of small farmers, who still constitute some 40 percent of the population in Latin America and produce most of the continent's food. Their new goal became the development of high-yielding tropical crops that need little fertilizer and that small farmers could grow for their own direct consumption or sale. After 10 Years and $100 Million Today, almost 10 years and more than $100 million after that work began, it appears that the latest research, like the green revolution before it, has benefited large-scale producers and urban consumers, leaving the rural poor by the wayside once again.

''I appeal to the people to remain calm and have no fighting, and cause no death or destruction.

Attorney General William French Smith is expected to announce a major change tomorrow in the way Federal agencies respond to public requests for Government information and files. The change, in guidelines for complying with the Freedom of Information Act, could restrict the availability of such information. At the same time, Mr. Smith is expected to say that the Reagan Administration has begun a formal review of the act itself. Specifically, the policy change will rescind the requirement, established by Attorney General Griffin B. Bell in 1977, that agencies wanting to withhold the information requested must show that the disclosure would be ''demonstrably harmful'' to the Government.

It was a performance that would have pleased even Captain Ahab: three quick geysers of water, three fast-moving fins and a glimpse of three glistening mammoth backs. Out here in the rolling Atlantic Ocean, that was the signal that three finback whales were swimming in the briny waters and had decided to dive for their lunch - mackerel and sand eels and anything else they felt like picking off the ocean floor - 15 miles from the lighthouse at Montauk Point, L.I. There are whales in the waters off Long Island, and there are whale-watchers, too - a weekend navy that scouts the still-chilly ocean for descendants of the leviathans whose oil and skin were the most precious products of Long Island's economy early in the 19th century. But the 50 people who boarded the 72-foot Finback I, which is no bigger than the old-time whaling ships, came as friends of whales, not as harpoon-wielding foes. Led by Sam Sadove, a marine biologist who scanned the horizon from the upper deck, the expedition cruised for six hours today and spent almost two hours near the three whales, who bobbed for air, dived beneath the surface and stayed down for as long as seven minutes at a time.

An article yesterday on the New York Times/CBS News Poll erroneously described the Republican share of respondents who declared themselves members of one party or the other. Thirty-four percent of the respondents said they were Democrats; 26 percent said they were Republicans.

The Montana Power Company does more than sell the electricity that lights the homes and powers the factories in the Big Sky state. It also drills for oil, leases Canadian natural gas properties and mines for coal in Montana, Wyoming and Texas. These nonutility activities account for about half Montana Power's earnings, have lifted its bond rating and have kept its stock price high. Although Montana Power is more diversified than most, more utilities are turning to nonutility ventures to increase earnings - everthing from real estate to barge transport, fish hatcheries and pipelines. But, however attractive, diversification is a route paved with uncertainty.