What was going on when I was born?

Two weeks ago, Tracy Austin sat in a locker room in West Berlin and cried, her body encased in eight icebags and her hopes of playing at Wimbledon diminished by persistent back pains and limited mobility. Today, on the eve of tennis's most celebrated tournament, Miss Austin achieved a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Andrea Jaeger in the final of the $125,000 BMW event. The triumph, in 1 hour 13 minutes, must be taken as a sign that she has regained much of her form and movement at the right time. In sweeping the final Wimbledon tuneup for the second straight year, Miss Austin ran through six opponents (Betsy Nagelsen, Anne Hobbs, Joe Durie, Anne Smith, Barbara Potter and Miss Jaeger). She considered her renewed confidence more important than having to decide whether to accept the $18,000 in prize money or a car valued at $28,000 (she already has one BMW and two Porsches).

LAST fall, with little fanfare and almost no publicity, state laws governing the categories and powers of ''peace officers'' were amended. Concluding that the new law has eliminated both their authority and their liability protection, in the past month or so auxiliary police units in most Westchester communities have suspended operations. Although there is no countywide organization of these auxiliary police units, they exist in almost every community in Westchester and voluntarily supplement regular police units. Rushed through in the closing days of the spring 1980 legislative session, the ''Omnibus Peace Officer's'' bill designated peace officers, prescribed their powers and mandated training programs. For each of the 44 job categories listed, which included such positions as correction officials and city marshals as well as auxiliary police, the bill outlined under what circumstances the powers of a peace officer could be assumed.

The Reagan Administration and the air traffic controllers' union intensified talks today with only slightly increased hopes of averting a threatened Monday strike that would severely curtail air travel and have serious economic effects. However, after 10 hours, the two sides adjourned their talks and planned to resume tomorrow at 2 P.M. They had apparently not made enough progress to meet the union's criterion for postponing the nationwide walkout, which is set to start with Monday's day shifts. M. The president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, Robert Poli, was asked as he left the talks at 10:30 P.M. whether he was more optimistic than he was this morning. Union Head Not Optimistic ''No, I am not more optimistic,'' he said, and his demeanor reflected it. Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis, who had emerged a few minutes before, seemed less downcast. ''We really hope to work something out tomorrow,'' he told reporters, ''so that there'll be no strike.''

They always seem to wear the skimpiest of bikinis, and they often carry weapons - a gun, a knife, a spear, perhaps even a miniature Abomb. Their hair is always long, their smiles are always pouty and their names are always memorable. First there was Honeychile Rider (played by Ursula Andress), and later came Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) and Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) and Tiffany Case (Jill St. John) and Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles). In the film business, they are known as ''the Bond girls,'' because they are the chief love interests of James Bond, British Secret Service Agent 007, in the Ian Fleming adventure series. And now, with the 12th Bond film, ''For Your Eyes Only,'' set to open on Friday at local theaters, another Bond girl has been added to the roster. Her hair is long, her smile is pouty, and her real name is more memorable than that of the character she plays. She is Carole Bouquet, a darkhaired, green-eyed, 23-year-old French actress who won acclaim in 1977 for her performance in Luis Bunuel's Academy Award nominated film, ''That Obscure Object of Desire.''

It will probably be remembered as just another of Ronald Reagan's impetuous shots from the hip. But the President's attack on House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill last week - he accused him of ''sheer demagoguery'' in a postscript to a news conference -helped Congressional Democrats appear, however briefly, very much like a unified opposition. Mr. O'Neill, who looks to have acquired a political second wind lately, responded with a carefully placed shot to the President's supply side. ''The issue is the programs he's been sending to the Congress,'' he said. ''They are all geared to the wealthy of America.'' Other good Democrats professed outrage, and there was talk of punishing some boll weevils - Representative Phil Gramm, chief among them -for their turncoat votes in the seemingly endless budget battle. (Administration's second agenda, page 4.)

ONCE dynasties roamed the earth in baseball. They were the Macks and Comskeys and Stonhams and Wrigleys and Briggses and Ebbetses. They were old-line patriarchs who bought baseball teams in the early years, and then passed ownership down to their heirs. For various reasons, these families, like the great creatures of prehistoric their habits in new times and unable to compete. And new and different breeds took their place.

Oil glut! What once seemed as unlikely as $850 gold or an 18 percent Treasury bill is here. Suddenly, oil is so plentiful that prices are falling by amounts that impress even big-time corporate decisionmakers. Businesses across the country, which for a decade have seen nothing but oil stealing an ever larger bite of their operating dollar, are calculating what they can do to capitalize on the oil price drop. While most such adjustments are quick and modest, some companies are already puzzling over how to factor the newly favorable oil situation into longer range plans as well. To be sure, the dominant mood remains one of great caution. After all, world energy consumers have watched helplessly for years as the price of oil raced in breathtaking spurts from next to nothing to more than $40 a barrel while consumers endured periodic shortages that made some wonder if oil would ever be freely available again.

The 'No Tax Cut' Scenario President Reagan's return to the microphone at last week's news conference to criticize House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. may cost the nation a tax cut this year. Some analysts still believe tax reductions will be enacted by Oct. 1, but acknowledge the odds are no better than 50-50. However, further delay might not be so bad. A tax cut effective next Jan. 1 would help the credit markets, as Government borrowing needs continue to drop, putting downward pressure on interest rates. According to David Jones, an economist at Aubrey G. Lanston & Company, postponing the tax cut from July to October should save Uncle Sam $5 billion to $6 billion. Comparable fourth-quarter savings could be expected.

Woodhull Hospital, designed as one of the world's most innovative and visually striking hospitals and completed three years ago, is now unlikely to open before 1983, according to New York City officials. That would be nearly a decade after it was originally scheduled to open as a municipal hospital in Brooklyn. City and state officials attribute the long delays to a series of labor strikes and endless design changes during construction and to the city's reluctance afterward to open a hospital it says will be a financial burden to operate. Since Woodhull was completed in 1978, it has loomed forbidding and silent over the scarred landscape of the Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant sections. The 610-bed hospital, a huge steel and glass structure that overwhelms the surrounding neighborhood, cost the city more than $200 million to build - more than twice the projected cost - and many items, expected to add millions more, are still to be counted. In addition, the city has spent nearly $70 million in interest payments on bonds that financed the project and on security and mothballing expenses.

FOR a group spawned in New York City's subways, crossing the Hudson via PATH to emerge above ground in New Jersey seemed a logical way to go.And the Guardian Angels, the youthful - and controversial - civilian safety patrol, did just that, setting up their first New Jersey branch just one year ago. That branch was established in Hoboken, and since then the Angels have moved into Jersey City, Elizabeth, Newark and Trenton. There also are patrols in training in Paterson, Camden and Perth Amboy, and a New Brunswick group is in the discussion stage. (The organization, now officially known as the Alliance of Guardian Angels Inc., became a tax-exempt, nonprofit corporation in February. It has formed, or is forming, units in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Atlanta, Miami, Cleveland, Providence, Philadelphia, Stamford, New Haven and Boston, in addition to those in New York and New Jersey.)

Just when Madison Avenue had settled comfortably into the age of the superagency, something happened. Carl Spielvogel, vice chairman of one of the world's largest advertising conglomerates, the Interpublic Group of Companies, was passed over for chairman in May 1979, and he left. He hit tennis balls. He festered. He lunched with William M. Backer, who had recently turned in his vice chairman's title at McCann-Erickson, Interpublic's largest agency, because of what he termed ''philosophical'' differences with the front office. Within weeks, the two were in business. Three weeks later, Bob Lenz, the creative director of McCann-Erickson's New York office, defected to the Gotham, where the new agency had set up offices.

The cold numbers from the 1980 census show that all 17 black members of the House represent districts that have become too small, mostly much too small, to meet the one-man, onevote standard. But almost all 17 seem likely to survive the redistricting process anyhow. In these districts, politics will apparently provide what population does not, despite shrunken populations that leave the districts, on the average, only 77 percent as large as they must be to meet requirements for equal population. In most states, Democratic and Republican interests converge to protect black seats, even as fierce battles develop over other elements of redistricting, which must be carried out in the state capitals. Increased residential integration has made it more difficult to carve out districts in which blacks, who make up 11 percent of the country's population, predominate.