What was going on when I was born?

A House subcommittee voted unanimously today to discourage foreign acquisitions of American companies. It would do so by restricting foreign companies' flexibility to borrow funds to finance the takeovers. It was the first substantive action that Congress has taken in response to a wave of foreign bidding for American concerns, particularly by Canadians. Although the legislative move was not aimed specifically at Canada, it was a reflection of American business resentment of the activities of Canadian companies.

''We must rid ourselves of what remains of Napoleon's ancien regime.

The Mobil Oil Corporation has made its mark in the advertising world as a tough media street fighter that has pioneered an aggressive style of advertising in explaining oil industry profits, pricing and policy decisions. Public relations experts have generally given Mobil high marks for its techniques. But yesterday, many said Mobil might have overplayed its aggressiveness and embarrassed itself with a series of price reversals this week in response to new state taxes on oil companies. ''It looked like they were out to gouge the public,'' said an executive vice president at one of the largest public relations firms in New York. ''It was a serious public relations mistake. They ended up going through a lot of grief they didn't have to.''

The House endorsed the Reagan Administration's military buildup program today by approving a $136 billion military authorization bill for the fiscal year 1982, making it the costliest military measure in the nation's history. The House voted, 354 to 63, for a measure similar to one already passed by the Senate and $26.4 billion higher than the one approved for the current fiscal year. A House-Senate conference committee will work out differences.

A Company News item in Business Day on Friday incorrectly described a real estate transaction by the Radice Corporation. The company will acquire 266 acres in Clearwater, Fla.

New York City is making a new effort at strict enforcement of all existing regulations on food vendors, especially those who cook in the streets. And in a move to reduce drastically the amount of cooking on sidewalk carts, Dr. Reinaldo A. Ferrer, the New York City Commissioner of Health, plans to enforce the strictest interpretation of the city's sanitary code beginning next January. That is when the majority of food vending licenses are subject to renewal. Because the stricter enforcement would require added expense for cart renovation, it is expected that some vendors might choose not to renew their licenses.

a place that people think less of going to than of leaving. It is a city with houses of aluminum siding and asbestos shingles, where the streets have diners and corner taverns with neon signs and where the major presences on the skyline are the Beaux-Arts domes and towers of the county courthouse and the city hall because this city was never prosperous enough to clutter itself up with glass skyscrapers. Paterson has not changed much since the early 1950's, except for the ripping down of a few downtown buildings in the expectation of an urban renewal that never came; if the city looks in any way different from 30 years ago, it is that its center seems just a little bit older and a little bit more tired. But there is one part of Paterson that has changed dramatically, and that is the city's industrial district, centered around the Great Falls of the Passaic River. Paradoxically, there, in a complex of factories and industrial buildings that a traveler would expect to be the city's grungiest quarter, Paterson is at its most promising. And it is definitely worth going to.

International A POLITICAL SOLUTION IN EI Salvador was reflected in a policy statement issued by the Reagan Administration. It committed itself to a political rather than a military resolution of the Salvadoran conflict and pledged support for free elections. The statement omitted previous references to the war as an arena of Soviet-American conflict. (Page A1, Column 6.) A new American nuclear policy was formally announced by President Reagan. It affirmed a commitment to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, efforts to ''improve regional and global stability'' to help deter countries from developing nuclear arms and to make the United States a more ''predictable and reliable'' supplier of nuclear technology for peaceful uses. (A4:1-4.)

The lemonade was free. The strawberries and the chewing gum were, too. These confections, offered at a press conference by G.D. Searle & Company yesterday, are just a few of the food items that will contain the company's new low-calorie sweetener. The sweetener is aspartame, a food additive approved Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration. Many believe the additive will eventually steal away much of the existing $115 million annual demand for saccharin, currently the only substitute for sugar in the United States, and possibly convert some sugar users as well.

THE old roller coasters are still there, and you can hear the shrieks of the passengers as they rumble by. But today's thrill seekers also put on bathing suits to plunge down a seven-story water slide into a swimming pool. A fellow and a girl may still snuggle closer when their gondola sways at the top of the Ferris wheel, but later on they do their own swaying to the sound of a band. And though young men still try to impress their dates by ringing the bell with a sledgehammer, they are just as likely to show off by zipping around a twisting track in a formula race car. All the traditional sounds and smells and sights - the screams and the music of marching bands, the hot dogs with mustard, the ping, ping, ping of shooting-gallery rifles - are still vividly available at amusement parks in and around New York City. But the parks are changing as Americans discover once again vaudeville, rock and disco music, and the kind of traffic jams that camels, rhinoceroses and ostriches roaming free can cause. These are among the attractions to be found this weekend at metropolitan area parks. Yes, it is possible to recapture the pleasant terrors of childhood by taking a trip on a flashy vehicle that rides a rail. But the accent now is more on doing it yourself - driving your own speedboat, Alpine toboggan or space ship.

France's new Socialist Government has approved what may be the most far-reaching of all its proposals, the decentralization of government. The measure, called ''the rights and liberties of the communities, departments and regions,'' was described by Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy as ''the most important business of our seven-year term.'' President Francois Mitterrand had made decentralization one of the key planks in his campaign platform. ''We must rid ourselves of what remains of Napoleon's ancien regime,'' Mr. Mauroy said recently.

The Senate Commerce Committee today passed, by a 16-to-1 vote, a landmark bill to lift regulations from much of the telephone industry and allow the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to enter new and growing fields of information processing and distribution, although it restricts Bell from beaming classified advertising to homes or establishing its own electronic newspapers. Senator Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican who is chairman of the committee and a strong proponent of the bill, hailed the passage as a ''momentous occasion'' and the culmination of four years of work by the committee. The American Newspaper Publishers Association had threatened to fight the bill if it did not contain the advertising protections. Although the Senate Judiciary Committee has indicated it will propose amendments to the bill, its chance for passage late this year or early in 1982 are good, according to the committee. On the House side, Representative Timothy E. Wirth, Democrat of Colorado, chairman of the telecommunications subcommittee, has said he expects to introduce a bill by October.