What was going on when I was born?

The cool bronze of the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park offered relief to a resourceful passer-by.

In a second sucessive day of token strikes, 6,000 employees of the state-owned airline stopped work for four hours this morning in a dispute over the employees' demand that they be allowed to elect their own general manager. The protest, which was believed to be the first strike affecting civil aviation in the Soviet bloc, caused a cancellation by the airline, LOT, of eight domestic flights and delays or cancellations of 14 international flights, according to organizers of the strike. The action, coming after a one-hour walkout by 40,000 dock workers yesterday, raised fears that labor unrest might be starting up again, at a time when the Communist Party is preparing for an emergency congress next week to consider changes in the party's statutes, leadership and policies. 3 Dissidents Ordered Rearrested In another development, the Supreme Court ordered the rearrest of three anti-Communist dissidents who are being tried on charges of plotting violent overthrow of the country's constitutional system. The three, along with a fourth man, also on trial but at liberty because of ill health, belong to a right-wing organization called the Confederation of Independent Poland.

A roller-skating elephant will be at Fordham University in the Bronx this morning but not to attend classes. The pachyderm will appear along with jugglers, clowns, acrobats and aerialists in a twohour performance by the Big Apple Circus, the one-ring big top that gives its audience a close look at things. All spectators are seated within 20 feet of the ring in the 1,100-seat tent. Today's 10:30 performance will be the first of 12 given through July 16. There will be three performances tomorrow and two on Sunday. The site is at the corner of Fordham Road and Southern Boulevard, across from the New York Botanical Garden. It can be reached by taking the IND's D train to Bedford Park Boulevard, then the No. 17 bus to Southern Boulevard, or the IRT's No. 4 to Bedford Park Boulevard, then the No. 17 bus. Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for children. Reservations: 369-5110.

A major New York City museum will have a suburban satellite for the first time when the Whitney Museum of American Art opens a branch in this Fairfield County community on Tuesday. The museum will be housed in 3,600 square feet on the ground floor of the new 15-story headquarters building of Champion International Corporation and will be totally supported by the corporation, a major manufacturer of building materials and paper products. The negotiations that brought the Whitney to Stamford were the result of a longstanding relationship between the museum and Champion, according to Andrew C. Sigler, chairman and chief executive officer of the corporation. The museum is virtually undetectable from the street, and its logo is split by an aluminum divider in the picture window.

Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, cut its quoted prices on wholesale coffee exports by almost 50 percent yesterday, with the top grade dropping to $1.07 a pound from $2, effective Monday. ''The Brazilians are facing reality.'' said Walter Emery, director of commodity research at the Commodity Research Bureau. Through its marketing agency, the Brazilian Coffee Institute, Brazil has been trying to keep the price of coffee up, despite steadily falling coffee prices in a glutted world market. Yesterday, according to some coffee importers, Brazil formally gave up the fight.

Six truckloads of new 48-inch water main arrived here this afternoon, and officials said workmen would begin rebuilding the ruptured aqueduct linking Newark to its five main supply reservoirs tomorrow. ''We'll certainly be putting pipeline in the ground tomorrow,'' Alvin Zach, Newark's director of engineering, said as a forklift truck unloaded a 20-foot section of reinforced concrete pipe from a flatbed truck. For the first time since a flooded and undermined concrete blockhouse collapsed and crushed the aqueduct's two pipelines sometime after midnight Tuesday, Mr. Zach seemed confident that Newark would surmount a crisis that still threatened to leave portions of the city without water. ''If things work well, we should have water in one of the pipelines by Monday and in the other by Wednesday or Thursday, and then we'll be over the hurdle,'' Mr. Zach said.

''I recognize that it takes a lot of courage to enact taxes in the United States in 1981.

The House of Commons erupted in a storm of bitter recrimination this afternoon after a sixth night of urban violence, with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher forced to shout to make herself heard over the taunts of critics. Tonight, the violence resumed in two cities. In Manchester, youths attacked a police station in the Moss Side district but were driven off. Earlier, groups of youths, both whites and blacks, set a shop afire and threw rocks and bricks at officers in what the city's Chief Constable called an outbreak of ''guerrilla warfare.'' In Woolwich, in east London, rampaging youths overturned several cars and damaged shops. The police said the situation there had been brought under control within an hour. Twelve people were arrested on looting and assault charges.

Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau of Canada will meet with President Reagan tomorrow against a backdrop of mounting resentment by American business over discriminatory Canadian investment and energy policies. At the same time, Canada faces a threat by Congress to make things more difficult for Canadian investors here. The Reagan Administration, mindful of benefits that flow from an investment policy, is not supporting any of the retaliatory moves and is calling for more time for the workings of quiet diplomacy. But bills already have been introduced to impose a nine-month moratorium on Canadian acquisitions of more than 5 percent of the stock of American energy companies and to apply to foreigners the same 50 percent margin requirement, or borrowing ceiling for securities purchases, that is required of American investors.

NATURE created the out of doors. Man created music. Summer music puts the two together. From the cool hills of Tanglewoood in the Berkshires to the secluded elegance of Westchester's Caramoor to the urban dockside setting of Manhattan and Brooklyn - man-made music - secluded for most of the year behind the soundproof walls of the concert hall - now takes its chances with the random, capricious and often wonderfully surprising sounds of nature. It is a phenomenon that only the summer concert experience can provide. Regardless of genre, regardless of serious purpose or lack of it, music outdoors remains unique. While silence surrounds the concert hall experience, nature's operatives are not necessarily so cooperative. Indeed, nature seems at times to enjoy imitating art. Birds are never happier than when given the chance to sing along with their human counterparts - as those who have overheard a morning rehearsal at Tanglewood or sat in Caramoor's Venetian Theater just before the sun goes down well know. Birds and their colleagues in nature seem to feel not at all abashed that their sense of interval fails to fit the tempered scales of the musicians seated near them.

FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1981 International Britain's House of Commons seethed with bitter recriminations after a sixth successive night of urban violence, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was taunted and denounced by left-wing critics. Members of her own Conservative Party demanded stringent measures to combat the wave of rioting, looting and assaults on the police in the inner cities. In Manchester alone, more than 1,000 white and black youths stormed a police station and shattered and looted more than 150 shops. (Page A1, Column 1.) Poland's airline, LOT, was struck for four hours by about 6,000 employees over a demand that they be allowed to elect the line's general manager. The protest was believed to be the first walkout affecting civil aviation in the Soviet bloc. (A1:2.)

House Democrats said today that tax relief could go into effect on Oct. 1, even if Congress missed President Reagan's Aug. 1 deadline for passage of a tax bill. In a new tactic, aides to Representative Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said that a cut in tax rates could become effective as of Oct. 1 although the reduction in withholding taxes might not begin until later. In that event, the aides said, taxpayers would get refund checks upon filing their tax returns next spring. Meanwhile, the Administration and Mr. Rostenkowski, an Illinois Democrat, both turned a cold shoulder to a suggestion by Senator Bob Dole, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that a compromise tax bill could be fashioned. Mr. Dole, a Republican from Kansas, suggested that the Republicans would go along with the Democratic preference for giving extra tax relief to those with incomes below $50,000 a year if the Democrats would agree to a 25 percent, threeyear tax-rate cut instead of just 15 percent over two years.