What was going on when I was born?

HIGHLIGHTING a Connecticut summer crammed with music, art, theater, antique shows, outdoor attractions, special events and sites of historic interest, are two impressively mounted Shakespearean productions in Stratford and the establishment of a new spectator sport - whale-watching. The American Shakespeare Theater, which had fallen on hard times, has after four years of financial and administrative reform been restored to economic health. ''We are ready to make a strong artistic statement and to reestablish the theater's national prominence,'' said Richard E. Bader, its executive director since 1977 and a former Deputy Administrator for Parks and Cultural Affairs for New York City. ''Obviously we're doing well now, or we couldn't do this season.'' At a cost of $600,000 for each production, Shakespeare's ''Henry V,'' starring Christopher Plummer, will be presented from July 7 to Aug. 22, to be followed by ''Othello'' with James Earl Jones in the title role from Aug. 4 to Aug. 30. Both plays will be directed by Peter Coe, newly appointed artistic director of the theater.

Flashback: The time is the early 1970's. Pubic hair is visible in ''Medium Cool,'' a film about Chicago in the 1960's. Frontal nudity is seen in ''If,'' a movie about an English boys' school. And, in the film ''Midnight Cowboy,'' one of the principal characters is a male prostitute. No one now at the Motion Picture Association of America's Code and Rating Administration can remember precisely what was the specific objection to ''Midnight Cowboy,'' but the fact remains that the CARA awarded all three of these films its X rating: For Adults Only. Times and community standards change, and there is general agreement among most people in the movie industry that none of these films would cause much of a stir today. Now, in all probability they would be rated R - restricted to those over 17 unless accompanied by a parent. In the decade past, the ratings system devised in 1968 by the motion picture industry in an effort to forestall an outbreak of community censorship has reflected a general loosening of community standards.

NEWARK IN THE end, as rationing died, water was being wasted to the sea and water companies were petitioning the Board of Public Utilities, the state's rate-setting agency, for substantial rate increases because of slumping sales and revenues. The suppliers seeking increases are the Hackensack, Elizabethtown, Middlesex, Ridgewood and Commonwealth Water Companies. Alfred L. Nardelli, the state's Deputy Public Advocate, whose department challenges utility rate cases, took a dim view last week of the water companies' plea on the basis of declining revenues. ''When a utility loses money,'' Mr. Nardelli said, ''they can't come and assess customers higher charges for the losses. Their are several cases that establish this doctrine. We're going to be saying that the stockholders should bear those losses, not the customers.''

It may seem odd to regard a sandstorm as a piece of good fortune, but in Egypt recently my family and I were hit by one that closed the airports and forced us into a delightful discovery about a new way to travel down (or up) the Nile. Since January, a spanking new overnight train, manufactured in West Germany, has been making daily runs between Cairo and Aswan, with an intermediate stop in Luxor. In my book it ranks as one of the finest railway journeys anywhere. I confess a certain weakness for trains. I have traveled on sleepers in the American West and the Canadian Rockies, in Thailand and Finland and Eastern Europe. I have spent more nights than I can count on Russian trains to Murmansk and Minsk, Vilnius and Leningrad, Riga and Brest. My wife, Debby, and I once took the train from Moscow to Paris through a monumental snowstorm, sitting in our snug compartment and stuffing ourselves with black caviar, vodka and steaming tea.

HARTFORD ''THOSE who know Connecticut appreciate it; those who don't, think it's all concrete and factories,'' said Barnett D. Laschever, the state's Director of Tourism. Since assuming the post in 1974, Mr. Laschever's job has been to persuade those in the latter category that there is more to Connecticut than industrial development. Compared with some states, like Florida and New York, which come ''pre-sold'' because of their major attractions, he said, ''we have to try harder.'' Connecticut, he said, has an image problem. ''Ask someone out in Iowa what they associate with Connecticut and what will he say? Industry. Ask someone closer and he'll probably tell you the state is a 'bedroom town' for New York executives. What these people don't realize is that Connecticut is still 80 percent forested and that it has a wide range of scenic, historical, cultural and recreational attractions.''

EAST HAMPTON IN the late afternoon of a clear, sunny day, Willem de Kooning cleans his tools, wipes the paint from his hands and settles into his favorite chair to study the day's work. Bright natural light still fills the spacious studio in Springs, where he has lived and worked since 1964. Here, his soft-spoken, understated manner seems to contrast sharply with the exuberant, even aggressive gestures now frozen on the canvases that surround him. At the age of 77, the vigor of his expression is undiminished, enabling him to speak with confidence of his work in progress and his responses to the region that has shaped his art over the last 30 years. His development as one of the foremost Abstract Expressionists - many would argue, one of the true geniuses of 20th-century art - is intimately connected with his change of environment from urban to rural. The increasing influence of the South Fork, from the early days of his summer visits through the years of part-time residence, his permanent move here from New York City and his current preoccupation with free, spontaneous creation, is traced in the exhibition of more than 70 works from 1951 to 1981 that opens today at Guild Hall.

Slow Summer for the Economy The sharp upward revision in G.N.P., which the Commerce Department now says grew at an impressive 8.4 percent annual rate during the first quarter, may persuade Congress that the risk of fueling new inflation makes the Reagan tax cuts a bad bet. However, the G.N.P. increase has not altered forecasts for this quarter, or for the second half of 1981. They tend to call for sluggish performance. Analysts like Lacy Hunt of Philadelphia's Fidelity Bank and Edward Yardeni of E.F. Hutton say that high inventories and booming exports - two key elements in last quarter's surge - are not likely to remain strong.

Dave Righetti, who rebounded from a humbling minor league season last year and was recalled by the Yankees on Wednesday, pitched seven sharp innings last night, and held the Cleveland Indians to four hits and two runs in a 3-2 Yankee victory. The 22-year-old left-hander, considered the top pitching prospect in the Yankee organization before the emergence of Gene Nelson, seemed to have conquered his tendency toward wildness. Righetti struck out seven Indian batters and walked three in registering his first major league victory. The game included an unusual triple play by the Indians in the sixth inning. It was almost as nifty as the one seen on a late-night rerun of the movie ''The Odd Couple.'' With runners on first and second and no outs, Bucky Dent hit a grounder to third and Toby Harrah fielded it and stepped on the bag. Harrah threw to second where Alan Bannister made the second out by forcing Nettles. Then the second-base umpire, John Shulock, ruled that Nettles's rolling slide interfered with Bannister as he was throwing to first, and that completed the triple play.

LADY LUCK is suddenly smiling on the American economy. Inflation, that endemic illness, is edging lower. The Consumer Price Index - the broad yardstick of prices for food, clothing, shelter and other everyday needs - rose at an annual rate of just 4.8 percent in April after a gain of 7.2 percent in March, well below the 12 percent-plus figures of much of last year. Many economists are predicting that the index will run at or below the 7 percent level for much of the rest of the year. Prices are still rising, at what in the not-too-distant past was an unacceptable rate. But the fever seems to be abating. ''There is a definite lull in inflation,'' said Walter Heller, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. ''It's the luck of the Irish,'' he said, with President Reagan in mind. ''Things are beginning to come together,'' agreed Kenneth Froewiss, vice president and economist at the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. ''It's a real change from the view just a month or two ago.''

The following article is based on reporting by Raymond Bonner and Edward T. Pound and was written by Mr. Pound. Nicholas S. Gouletas, chairman of the American Invsco Corporation, says the real-estate conglomerate will continue to employ his sister, Evangeline, who is Governor Carey's new wife, despite her public announcement that she was withdrawing from participation in company affairs. Mr. Gouletas, Mrs. Gouletas-Carey and their brother, Victor N. Goulet, each own one-third of American Invsco, a Chicago-based concern. Mr. Gouletas said his sister would serve as a paid consultant on development projects in Chicago and Denver. When she married the Governor, Mrs. Gouletas-Carey resigned as a director and officer of American Invsco and its affiliates. ''I have given up my personal career to devote myself 500 percent to being First Lady,'' she said in an interview on April 8. In another interview the next day, she said, ''I am not going to be fulfilling any of the previous roles'' she had with the company. Repeated requests last week for further comment from Mrs. Gouletas-Carey on whether she would be consulting on the projects were refused by Mr. Carey's aides.

Minutes before the ''corporate recruiter'' was due to visit last Oct. 14, Farida Zagallai, a Libyan student here, turned to her husband, Faisal, and, she recalled the other day, said nervously: ''Maybe it's the hit man. Do you think he's been sent by Qaddafi?'' Six months earlier, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had warned Faisal, also a graduate student at Colorado State University, that he was one of 24 students on a Libyan list of people to be killed because of their opposition to the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Mrs. Zagallai remembers that her husband shrugged his shoulders in answer to her question and said: ''I thought about it this morning. But I've got my gun.''

CINCINNATI O N the coffee table in Karolyn Rose's living room there rests a music box designed like an oversized baseball. It is a souvenir she obtained while attending one of 13 All-Star games with Pete Rose, from whom she was divorced in December. When the top half of the music box is raised the melody of ''Take Me Out to the Ball Game'' tinkles up. ''It's one of the few mementos I've kept from the marriage,'' she says, putting the lid back on and silencing the music. ''I like it, and I like what it reminds me of. You can't live in the past, but you can't forget the past, either. And I don't try. I was married to Pete for 16 years. We had some great times. I'd be lying if I said I didn't.'' But there was pain, too, and that remains. There were days when Rose was on the road and didn't call, when there were rumors of his being with other women, the tacit understanding of his using discretion in their hometown, Cincinnati, and how, Karolyn Rose came to believe, that was violated, then a widely publicized paternity suit against Pete that he did not contest.