What was going on when I was born?

Dissident Canadian air traffic controllers, whose work stoppages stranded thousands of travelers on two continents in recent days, returned to work in full force across Canada today. Before the negotiations with the Government that ended the work stoppages, the Government had suspended more than 25 controllers and had started actions that could have led to $5,000 fines for those refusing to handle traffic going to and from the United States. The dissident controllers, who were acting in support of striking controllers in the United States, had not won widespread public support and had been criticized directly in confrontations with pilots and angry passengers. The negotiations produced an agreement between Canada's Department of Transportation and the Canadian Air Traffic Controllers Association for resumption of traffic control procedures at 8 A.M. today and joint management-labor studies of the safety problems controllers say have been created by the American strike.

Cablevision, one of the few remaining privately held cable companies, was awarded the Boston cable franchise yesterday on the basis of a proposal to provide subscribers with 52 basic channels of service for $2 a month, one of the lowest rates in the country. The franchise, covering 240,000 homes, was among the last available in a major urban market. The only other competitor in Boston was Warner-Amex Cable Communications, which has been the most successful bidder for franchises during the last two years with victories in Dallas, Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Only the most intrepid of the city's surviving hustlers are sidling up to strangers in poolrooms this week to ask if they'd like to shoot some nine-ball. The reason, as any adherent of the subculture knows, is that this is the week of the annual Professional Pool Players Association world championships at the Roosevelt Hotel, and any seemingly awed stranger could well be a participant. Nearly 100 of the world's best, men and women, are keeping the tables in the hotel's Grand Ballroom alive with break shots and caroms from 11 A.M. until well after 2 in the morning, and they are not above looking for some outside action in off hours. ''This was always a tough town to win in anyway,'' said one of the visitors, who ekes out a living hoodwinking the unwary but has had little success in the few remaining New York poolrooms this week. ''You beat somebody here and they won't play again, but somebody beats you, they want to play all night. Down South, when people lose, they'll want to come back. You can get them for a few hundred before they catch on.''

One of the more bitter energy debates of the past decade - whether to allow the export of Alaskan oil to Japan - is again being heard in Congress and the White House. Proponents contend that exports of Alaskan crude would result in cheaper oil prices for many American consumers who buy petroleum products refined along the Gulf Coast. In place of Alaskan oil, Gulf refiners would receive oil from Mexico, which costs less to transport. Exports of Alaskan oil to Japan currently are banned under the Export Administration Act of 1979, which addressed possible problems of national security and was designed in part to stimulate the development of the tanker and shipping industries in the United States. Federal law requires that shipments between American ports must be made on United States ships.

SALISBURY, Conn. WHEN the stars and the moon come out, they shine right through the house in the woods where Marietta Whittlesey and Nic Osborn dwell. The young couple are part of nature but snugly dry whether the weather outside be dappled sunlight and shadow or crashing thunderstorm. The beauty and majesty of their experience have come as a bonus, because the original decision to live as they now do was purely financial. Mr. Osborn and Miss Whittlesey were outraged at the summer rents in this northwestern corner of Connecticut, running up to $1,000 a month. So, early in May, they decided they would save money by spending the summer in a tent.

The plan under which the Federal Aviation Administration has kept airplanes flying during the strike by air traffic controllers has made the airways at least as safe as normally, airline executives and many pilots say. But they also express concern that, in time, the effects of fatigue will cause controllers still on the job to lose much of their alertness. Striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization have said publicly and repeatedly that it is now unsafe to fly because the traffic control system is overloaded and manned by unqualified personnel. The Flow Control Technique It was computer modeling studies in the spring of 1980 that convinced the F.A.A. that it could use an air traffic metering technique called "flow control" to keep about 75 percent of the nation's commercial flights safely moving, even with a loss of 12,000 of the agency's 17,000 control personnel. Flow control, a computer-based technique designed to get the maximum use of air space, airport capacity and radar facilities by carefully spacing the stream of aircraft through the skies, works much as computer-controlled stop lights meter the flow of traffic on to some urban freeways.

The two-day disruption in trans-Atlantic air travel broke up rapidly yesterday after air traffic controllers in Canada ended a boycott of United States flights in return for a joint inquiry with their Government into whether the Aug. 3 walkout by American controllers had raised safety hazards. With the Canadian action, the 12,000 American strikers were abruptly deprived of the most effective support they had received since beginning their illegal nationwide strike. The refusal of controllers at Gander, Newfoundland, a key control facility, to provide guidance for traffic leaving and going to the United States had forced planes to be sent through a bottleneck route that skirted the south border of the Gander zone. This had cut traffic to a trickle and caused chaos in airports on both sides of the Atlantic for two days.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's national security adviser, said today that the time had come for the United States to end its boycott and ''talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization.'' In a breakfast meeting with a group of reporters, Mr. Brzezinski said he was not advocating formal negotiations or recognition of the P.L.O. as a government. But, he said, Washington should undertake ''some form of dialogue with the P.L.O. which encourages it to be more moderate and which leads to the engagement of the P.L.O. in solving the West Bank and Gaza Strip issues.'' Young Met With P.L.O. The only other senior member of the Carter Administration to advocate a break with the policy of not dealing with the P.L.O. was Andrew Young, who served as chief representative at the United Nations. He resigned in August 1979 after it was learned that he had met privately with the P.L.O. representative at the United Nations to discuss a possible Security Council resolution.

MORE than anything else, the atmosphere on the moving-in days was like the first day of college -even if the new tenants looked more like returning alumni than incoming freshman. There was not a carton in sight. Books were neatly arranged on shelves, curtains covered windows and photographs of children and grandchildren hung proudly on walls. The air of euphoria, the feeling of triumph, were palpable. After an arduous four years, from the time of application for funds, the Scheuer House of Bayside, Queens, an apartment house for the elderly, was completed. Financed with a $6.9 million Federal construction grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the complex was sponsored by United Help, a charitable organization that specializes in housing for the elderly. Similar apartment houses have been built by other agencies.

An article in Business Day yesterday incorrectly reported a change in Chase Manhattan Bank's broker loan rate. The bank lowered the rate Tuesday to 19 percent from 19 1/2 percent.

In Europe, carriers fight to get Atlantic jets aloft D22 Gander control tower at hub of Trans-Atlantic traffic D22 The strike as seen from the cock- pit D23 International Escapes over Berlin wall decreas- ing sharply A2 Clergymen hopeful about reli- gious freedom in China A4 Around the World A5 Second planeload of French citi- zens arrives in Paris from Iran A8 Doctors say Pope faces two months' convalescence A8 Mitterrand frees 21 imprisoned mothers A9 Sadat said to seek 100 to 150 more F-16's A10 Vietnamese orphan tells harrow- ing tale of escape voyage A10 Government/Politics U.S. questions Detroit's sale of bonds to pension funds A12 125 Haitian refugees taken to new center in Puerto Rico A17 Hint of impropriety hangs over Virginia G.O.P. contest A18 Chicago school board votes to sell Midway Airport to city A19 Bill on property assessment chal- lenges is in limbo B2 General Around the Nation A12 Army moves 128 nerve gas bombs from Denver to Utah desert A12 Lawyer says U.S. will let boy's parents take him to Soviet A13 Policewoman dismissed for wounding 2 in market robbery A15 Six elderly missing from board- ing home in Miami A16 Bar changes rule denying Oral Roberts school standing A21 Seneca Falls, N.Y., in tangle over a Women's Rights Park B2 Home Section Home Summer living under a tent in the woods C1 For elderly, the triumph of hav- ing a place to call their own C1 Caring for devices that curb fires C3 A 60's echo in an 80's loft: the conversation pit C6 Craftsman makes "antiques of the future" C14 Children, a job and no time C1 Hers C2 Helpful Hardware C2 Home Improvement C4 Common flu virus can kill new- born C5 Calendar of events: crafts and wildflowers C7 Design Notebook C10 Gardening C12 An accredited school for chimney sweeps C13 Australian horse meat is investi- gated by U.S. C15 Arts/Entertainment "The Incomparable Hildegarde" offers her club act C16 A vacationing critic looks at West German opera C16 Marcel Moyse conducts at Marl- boro Music Festival C17 Tennessee Williams back in New York to open new play C17 Vladimir Horowitz is switching concert managements C19 Robert Bernen's "In the Heat of the Sun" is reviewed C21 Obituaries The Rev. Lawrence L. Durgin of Broadway Church of Christ D21 James B. Fisk, former chairman of Bell Laboratories D21 John V. Connorton, former New York City Deputy Mayor D21 Sports Giants enjoy depth at inside line- backer B8 Ryan resigned to role of backup quarterback for Jets B8 Mets win 3d straight; Hausman on disabled list B9 Yankees beat Rangers, 5-4, in game that had everything B9 Cosmos, led by Cabanas, top Dip- lomats, 4-2 B9 Hubert Green striving to regain winning touch on PGA Tour B9 George Vecsey on the Whitey Ford of Mexican baseball B10 Red Sox beat White Sox with six homers B11 News Analysis John F. Burns assesses Soviet reaction on neutron weapon A7 Tony Schwartz discusses net- works' move into cable news C18 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A22 Communicating with Moscow Enduring, prison-forged rage Runaway nuclear plant costs Topics: Stop and Go Letters A22 William Safire: Phase II of the Reagan Revolution A23 John M. Starrels: beyond the Ber- lin wall A23 H. Jeffrey Leonard: Earth in the year 2000 A23 Michael N. Manley: perils in policy founded in myth A23

A two-day logjam in trans-Atlantic air travel cleared up swiftly after Canadian air traffic controllers called off a boycott of United States flights. In return, Ottawa promised to take part in an inquiry into the controllers' contention that the strike by American controllers had created safety hazards. (Page A1.) Airline executives and many pilots say that flights during the strike, carried on under a contingency flight plan developed by the F.A.A. last year, are as safe as in normal times. (A1.) Retail sales rose 1.3 percent in July, the Commerce Department reported. Although it was the second consecutive large monthly increase, economists did not see it as a sign of economic resurgence. Murray L. Weidenbaum, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged in a radio interview that the nation might be in its second recession in two years. (D1.)