What was going on when I was born?

The Dr Pepper Company has agreed in principle to acquire the business and most of the assets of Norton Simon Inc.'s Canada Dry subsidiary, the two companies announced late yesterday. Analysts said that the transaction would solidify Dr Pepper's nowtenuous market position as the third-largest soft-drink company after Coca-Cola and Pepsico. It is just ahead of the Seven-Up Company, a Philip Morris subsidiary. The announcement gave no indication of the nature of the transaction or of its estimated value. The brief statement, issued after approval of the sale during an afternoon meeting of Norton Simon's board, said the transaction was subject to the ''preparation and execution of a definitive agreement containing customary conditions.''

One recent afternoon, in the quiet time between the end of lunch and the beginning of dinner, 13 men sat down at a long table in the pale green Art Deco dining room of the G. Lombardi restaurant in Little Italy for a meal consisting of a salad of mussels, squid, shrimp, flaked codfish and black and green olives dressed with olive oil and lemon, a pasta with pesto and a main course of veal, chicken and mushrooms in Marsala. At the head of the table sat Salvatore Lubrano, who quietly smiled as the 12 others ate and chatted. Then, as they finished, he clapped his hands and said, ''All right!'' Aprons were strapped back on, toques went back on heads, black bow ties were clipped back on collars, monkey jackets were buttoned and the diners became second chef, salad prep, dishwashers, waiters and busboys. The staff had eaten and were going back to their jobs under the watchful eye of Mr. Lubrano, who is G. Lombardi's managing chef, or first cook, as he calls himself.

I used to be among those who were constantly trying to write something perceptive and flattering about California wines. ''The California miracle...30 years ago an industry in ruins...up from the ashes of Prohibition...new wineries every week...better and better...more and more'' - not original, but heartfelt. Not suprisingly, a couple of years in Europe, away from that charged atmosphere, effects a few changes. Actually it started fairly early in my tour. Lonely travelers would appear bearing California wines in their kits. They - the wines, not the travelers -seemed to have lost some of their charm, the reds in particular. Was it some kind of latent snobbism? Was it possible to become the Henry James of wine, eager to embrace the Old World and shuck off the New?

President Reagan, after threatening to veto an appropriations bill, won a key House test vote. (Page A1.) He also scored a victory over the dairy lobby when the Senate adopted his plan for lowering milk price supports. (A25.) Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige acknowledged implicitly that the economy was likely to be weaker nextyear than the Administration forecast two months ago. (D1.) Scores of banks lowered their prime lending rates by half a point, to 20 percent, giving business relief from high interest rates. The cut reflected a decline in what banks must pay for their own funds. (D1.)

Businesses across the country received a bi t of relief from high interest rates yesterday as scores of banks l owered their prime lending rates half a percentage point, to 20 percent. The reduction reflected a sharp decline in what banks must pay for their own funds,giving them leeway for further reductions in the interest rates they charge their customers. Interest rates also declined in the credit markets yesterday for both long-term and short-term issues as the financial markets debated whether the Federal Reserve had eased monetary policy. (Page D12.)

IS comparison shopping for groceries really worthwhile? The answer is yes - if you have strong arches, patience to spare, a love of detail and unlimited time. It also helps if you live in a metropolitan area where you have the luxury of shopping at several stores without adding to the cost of food every time you turn on a car's ignition. It took me four hours on a quiet Wednesday morning recently to compare prices by walking up and down the aisles of three supermarkets, two fruit and vegetable stores and three specialty markets in a six-block area on the West Side of Manhattan. I had a shopping list of 39 items that included the foods my husband and I eat: lots of fruit and vegetables and a limited amount of meat; cereal, bread and staples such as rice, spaghetti and orange juice; cheese, yogurt, milk and eggs, and a few accessory foods like soy sauce and vinegar. I chose the markets - Daitch Shopwell, D'Agostino and the West Side Supermarket, Fairway Fruits and Vegetables, Han's Fruit and Vegetable Market, Citarella's fish market, Chick-in & Prime Meats and a natural food store, the Health Nuts - because of their proximity to our apartment.

Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona, accused Moral Majority and other members of the ''new right'' today of undermining the basic American principle of separation of church and state by using the ''muscle of religion towards political ends.'' ''The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that Remarks by Goldwater, page A32. could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system if they gain sufficient strength,'' Mr. Goldwater warned in remarks offered for the record on the Senate floor. In those re marks and at a breakfast meeting with reporters, Mr. Goldwater con tended that members of what he termed ''special issue religious gro ups'' were uncompromising and unconcerned about upholding the integrity of the Constitution. He said they were also ''diverting'' Congress from what he termed such ''vital'' issues as the economy a nd national defense toward concerns of ''secondary'' importance su ch as abortion, busing, the proposed equal rights amendment to the Constitution and pornography.

IN one of Donald Barthelme's earliest stories the narrator says: ''I am free associating, brilliantly, brilliantly, to put you into the problem. Or for fear of boring you: which?'' A similar question has often been asked of Mr. Barthelme's own work, and readers of his short stories - a selection of which was published this week by Putnam - seem to be sharply divided. To some he has infused new life into fiction, achieving the resonance of myth while at the same time raising important questions about the nature and limits of art. To others he is simply a clever stylist, more interested in tiresome and coldly calculated word games than matters of moral import. Whichever view a reader adopts, one thing remains quite clear: along with su ch writers as William Gass, John Barth and Thomas Pynchon, Mr. Barthelme, at age 50, has taken the art of fiction and made it new. He has done away with traditional narrative, abandoned the pretense of trying to achieve lifelikeness in his fiction and employed a va riety of Brechtian devices to make the reader re-examinehis relations hip with the printed word.

Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige, implicitly acknowledging that the economy is li kely to be weaker in 1982 than the Administration predicted just two months ago, said today that '' any real pickup'' would not occur until summer. Mr. Baldrige's assessment was the first on-the-record statement of what Administration officials have been saying privately, that high interest rates appear to have washed out the Administration's forecast that the economy would grow in real terms -after allowing for inflation - by 5.2 percent from this year's last quarter to the fourth quarter of 1982. The Administration has forecast that business activity for all of next year would be 3.2 percent ahead of growth throughout 1981. Commerce Department analysts were reported to have told Mr. Baldrige that this estimate may be a full percentage point too high. Other Administration economists have said recently - but not for direct quotation - that growth for the 1982 calendar year might fall into a range of 2 to 3 percent.

These are tough times at De Beers, the world's largest marketer of diamonds. With the industry in the midst of a severe slump, the company appears hard-pressed to convince consumers of its claim that diamonds are, indeed, forever. High interest rates and a stagnant global economy have pushed diamond prices and sales down to levels once thought impossible. Perhaps more important, De Beers's tight, almost monopolistic, grip on the diamond trade appears to be slipping. ''The situation for De Beers is difficult,'' said Eric Levine, an analyst at Max Pollak & Freemantle Inc., a South African brokerage firm. ''But it's not impossible,'' he added, for the company to recover.

A severe shortage of trial jurors forced the closing of 12 courtrooms in State Supreme Court in Manhattan yesterday, causing the postponement of criminal trials and leaving judges and courtroom staffs idle. The city's top court officials said they believed that the extremely low juror turnout might have been the result of a computer problem in Albany. Only 300 of the 3,000 prospective jurors who were supposed to have been summoned reported on Monday. The four other boroughs, which do not use the same computer system as Manhattan, were not affected. Court officials, frantic to keep the courtrooms open, set up a 20-member team to telephone hundreds of prospective jurors. But the calls brought in only 40 or 50 additional jurors yesterday.

International The Pakistani Government has accepted a six-year $3.2 billion military and economic aid package offered by the United States after the Reagan Administration found a way to speed up delivery of F-16 fighter planes. The announcement of the agreement came on the eve of a hearing to consider the Administration's arguments for ending a ban on aid to Pakistan even though Pakistan has refused to rule out developing the ability to produce nuclear devices. (Page A1, Column 1.) An assassination attempt in Germany that was aimed at Gen. Frederick J. Kroesen, t he United States Army's European commander, failed with the general a nd his wife escaping with only minor cuts. Terrorists believed to b e member of the Red Army faction fired an antitank grenade and g unshots into the General's automobile. It was the fourthattack on Ame rican personnel and installations in West Germany in three weeks. (A1:2.)