What was going on when I was born?

Many New York City real estate owners are scrambling to close big sales they have in the works before Oct. 1. That's when the city starts collecting the new 10 percent capital gains tax on milliondollar sales of income-producing property. ''We're all rushing around like a bunch of nuts trying to get deals closed,'' said Melvyn Kaufman, a partner in the William Kaufman organization, an office builder. ''It's true of us, it's true of the whole city. Whatever we've got in the hopper, we're looking to get in under the wire.'' Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, for example, will escape a gains tax of more than $7 million by closing the $161 million sale of its headquarters at 350 Park Avenue on Sept. 23. The bank announced a $70 million after-tax profit on the sale.

Herschel Walker picked up today where he left off last season, gaining 161 yards on 30 carries and scoring one touchdown as Georgia defeated Tennessee, 44-0, to open the season with its 14th consecutive victory. Georgia, which was undefeated and the top-ranked team in the national wire-service polls last year, appeared considerably stronger today than it was at this stage a year ago. In its opener last year, Georgia rallied from a 15-0 deficit to beat Tennessee, 16-15. The Bulldogs have not lost since their next-to-last game of the 1979 season and have the longest current winning streak in major college football.

DETROIT I T has been two years of unrelenting misery for the American automobile industry. And what could well be the third, the 1982 model year, is beginning this month on the note of scaled-down production, a reluctant marketplace and few signs of a real rebound anytime soon. Total sales of American- and foreign-built passenger cars for model year 1981 are not expected to be much over nine million, virtually the same as 1980, and almost 2.5 million cars fewer than in 1973, the best year ever. Only as a result of severe cost cutting will the General Motors Corporation be able to show a profit for the calendar year. The Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Corporation have also cut costs, but they should still end up in the red. After so much difficulty, the industry has swallowed some bitter medicine. It has, in effect, concluded that the visions of evergreater growth, of three- and four-car families, are now bankrupt. To survive, the auto makers have substantially scaled down their work force over the last two and a half years, and they have closed numerous plants and sold off nonautomotive operations that competed for precious capital.

HARTFORD THE first round in the race for municipal offices - in some places the only important round -takes place on Tuesday in 55 towns and cities. Nominations for offices ranging from mayor and selectman to town clerk are at stake in about 65 separate primaries, most of them Democratic. Contests between Democrats in five cities, some of which are expected to be close, will choose the probable winner of the general election in November. The five cities are Bridgeport, Hartford, New Haven, Waterbury, and New Britain. In those cases and others, the winners will be chosen by a small fraction of the voters; only those registered in the party are eligible to vote in the primary, and many of them are expected to stay home. In 1979, voter turnout ranged from 66 percent (in an unusual, three-way contest in New Haven) to 26 percent in a Democratic primary in Danbury.

NORWALK SOMETIMES when Cantor Deborah Katchko-Zimmerman is singing a portion of the Friday night Sabbath service at Congegation Beth El here, she says she feels a special awareness of her own family history and its deep immersion in Jewish music. At those moments, her mother accompanying her on the synagogue organ, she knows that her father, Theodore, also a cantor, is probably singing the same portion at another synagogue in New Britain. Furthermore, they are likely to be performing the music composed by her late grandfather. ''It's a beautiful feeling,'' she says. Noting the mystical bond that she senses among the family members, she adds wistfully, ''I'm truly helping to carry on a tradition.''

CHILDREN in the county face a calm school opening this week, with no teacher strikes, fewer closings of elementary schools reported and less impact from Federal cutbacks in funds than had been predicted last spring. Reductions in assistance will have the sharpest effect in Mount Vernon and New Rochelle, where the number of teacher aides is being reduced. Remedial classes will be larger or will be run by one teacher instead of two. In Yonkers and White Plains, local funds have been moved from other programs to keep the remedial courses going. Because school districts in upper Westchester formerly received small Government allocations, the effect of cutbacks there will be less noticeable.

-------------------------------------------------------------------- SARAH FERRELL is an editor on the staff of the Travel Section. By SARAH FERRELL Morelia lies on a high plateau about 200 miles from either Guadalajara or Mexico City in the flowery and harshly green state of Michoacan. It is an aristocratic old city with a youthful air; the portals that line the street opposite the grand colonial cathedral are filled with cafes, and the cafes are filled with animation and with students, among them, in the summer, foreigners studying at the Lan guage Inst itute. Morelia's streets are wide and clean, its architecture Spanish colonial, harmonious by municipal decree (which explains the imitation-Spanish-colonial Woolworth's among other things). But what might seem formal is enlivened by explosions of color and gaiety, by flower stands and balloon vendors, by dogs and children, by a phrase of ''Carmen'' from the bandstand mingling with the strains of ''La Cucaracha'' from an automobile's musical horn. There are butterflies in the streets, but few tourists. What tourists there are usually spend only a night or two on the way to somewhere else. They do not linger in Morelia, and too bad for them.

The theocratic rule of Iran's mullahs is facing its most determined internal challenges in two and a half years of postrevolutionary chaos, but the Islamic regime still appears to be held together by the powerful charisma of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Just how determined the opposition is was demonstrated again today when yet another leading religious official -Hojatolislam Ali Qoddousi, the revolutionary prosecutor - was killed by a bomb planted in his office. The wave of violence began after the ouster of President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr just over two months ago. In the first major incident, on June 28, Ayatollah Mohammed Beheshti, who engineered the victory of the religious fundamentalists over the more secular, Westernized supporters of the revolution, was killed along with 70 other clerical officials by a bomb planted in the headquarters of the ruling Islamic Republican Party, which he headed. The ability of the bombers to penetrate heavily guarded installations is a chilling indication to the mullahs that at least some of their enemies have infiltrated the security apparatus.

Dave Righetti outpitched Larry Gura today as the Yankees scored a 2-1 victory over the Royals and ended Gura's domination over them. Graig Nettles scored both runs in the Yankees' seventh victory in their last nine games. Rich Gossage relieved Righetti in the ninth inning and earned his 18th save of the season and his first of the second season. Righetti and Gura last met at Yankee Stadium two weeks ago, when Gura, a left-hander, shut out the Yankees, 4-0, on a four-hitter for his seventh straight victory against his former team. Today's loss dropped Gura's career record against the New Yorkers to 8-2.

MONROE WHEN the schools reopened last Wednesday in this Fairfield County town, there were some changes that illustrate the financial pinch on schools all across the Connecticut in this new school year. The indoor swimming pool, built three years ago when Masuk High School was renovated, will not be used. Organizations wanting to use school buildings for meetings will be paying higher fees. School lunches will cost more. Adult education classes are in limbo, but may be reinstated - with higher fees - this week. Students wanting to participate in athletics at the high school will have to pay $25 per sport.

There is an oft-told tale here that when the Sadler's Wells ballet was booked to play Washington some years ago, the only place deemed suitable was Constitution Hall, the historic building owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Its maintenance crew prepared for the occasion by waxing the stage, with predictable results: Margot Fonteyn danced out, slipped on the highly polished floor and fell on her tutu. Thanks chiefly to the opening 10 years ago next Saturday of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington today is a changed city -no longer a cultural backwater but a metropolis where the arts are thriving. For example, the Washington Opera, whose season not long ago consisted of 16 performances of four operas, will be busier than ever before - presenting 57 performances of seven operas. Similarly, the National Symphony is offering more performances than in any other season except the bicentennial year, and will include a guest appearance by Leonard Bernstein, among other notables. There will be more ballet than ever before, more musicals, more dramas and even more Shakespeare.

ealthy? Full of vitality? Moribund? Conservative? Innovative? Just plain commercial? Nine Times critics were asked to assess the state of the arts in America. What do they find? All of the above. And they explain their findings in detail in essays that appear throughout this issue. The word ''vitality'' keeps coming up. Walter Kerr uses the noun. So do Hilton Kramer, Ada Louise Huxtable, Donal Henahan, Anna Kisselgoff and Robert Palmer.