What was going on when I was born?

SIXTEEN months ago, when a Pillsbury executive from Minneapolis named Thomas H. Wyman ac-cepted the job as president and chief executive of CBS Inc., he was throwing himself into the turbulence of at least two potential storms. First, Mr. Wyman had accepted a job under William S. Paley, CBS's 79-year-old founder, largest stockholder and chairman of the board, who had earned a reputation for capriciously dismissing chief executives. During the previous eight years, Mr. Paley had forced the resignation of no less than four hand-picked heirs apparent -Frank Stanton, John A. Schneider, Arthur R. Taylor and John D. Backe. In addition, Mr. Wyman agreed to take over a company vastly different from any he'd ever managed, and he did so at a time when the company's basic business - broadcasting - seemed theatened by a revolution in telecommunications unlike any since the introduction of television itself. The selection of Mr. Wyman raised the question of whether basic management skills are sufficient to outweigh the absence of experience in a wholly new field. Mr. Wyman had spent his career dealing mostly with tangible consumer products such as cameras and packaged foods. Could he just as effectively run a diversified $4 billion company whose main product - entertainment and information - depends on the creative efforts of individual writers, performers and producers?

restraint, easing back on the throttle, is. ''I don't think you can attribute Al's talent to muscular gifts,'' Rich Phaigh, the masseur for the Athletics West track team, said, while administering a friction massage to Salazar in a training room at the club's headquarters. ''You can attribute it to the fact that he's the toughest runner on the face of the earth.'' ''I paid him five dollars to say that,'' Salazar said, flinching as Phaigh's ubiquitous thumb found another tender spot above Salazar's left knee. It is 6:20 in the evening, a time when most businessmen have finished their work day. Salazar, 23 years old, a University of Oregon graduate, soon to be employed by the Nike Shoe Company in its international marketing department, already has run twice for about two hours, taken a one-hour nap, visited Phaigh for therapy and spent several hours with a reporter. ''I make no bones about it. I make my living off running,'' he says.

When Congress passed the Housing Act of 1968, it committed the nation to the goal of producing 2.6 million units of housing a year, including 600,000 annually for low-income families. Now, if the Reagan Administration has its way, the direct Federal subsidy programs enacted by Congress to help meet that goal will be drastically curtailed. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is proposing deep cuts in the two main subsidy programs - Section 8 rental housing assistance and public housing - for fiscal year 1983, which begins in a year. Not only are the programs too expensive in light of the President's plans to balance the budget, H.U.D. officials say, but they just do not fit in the Administration's new approach to housing. In the last year of the Carter Administration, Housing and Urban Development and Congress, alarmed by reports of a growing shortage of rental housing, frantically searched for a new way to use Federal subsidies to produce more apartments. Now, the department contends, there is no nationwide shortage of rental housing.

Privately, the Florida State Seminoles wondered how long their Oktoberfest could last. Enthusiastically, they said they could do here what they had done the last two weeks at Columbus, Ohio, and South Bend, Ind. - come home with another upset. But their party ended today at Pitt Stadium. Dan Marino, healed shoulder and all, passed for 251 yards and three touchdowns to lead Pittsburgh to a 42-14 victory that was as surprising as it was onesided. Bryan Thomas, a junior halfback, rushed for 217 yards to become the first Panther to gain more than 200 yards in a game since Tony Dorsett gained 202 in the 1977 Sugar Bowl game.

Like many older homeowners, Robert and Alice Blersch paid off their mortgage long ago. Their house, in Buffalo, represents their most valuable asset. Until recently, however, without sufficient income to qualify for new financing, the only way they could unlock that value was to sell the house, which is worth $23,000, and move out. Mr. Blersch is 74; his wife is 66. He is a retired machinist but has no pension, so they live mostly on Social Security. They have been worrying over a roof that needed replacing, a porch that needed fixing and rising taxes.

The new Government of President Hosni Mubarak issued a ban today on all use of firearms by civilians and confirmed that it was conducting a nationwide roundup of religious militants and political opponents. Soldiers carrying rifles with fixed bayonets patrolled universities, where political activity has been banned, and policemen checked identity papers of students returning to class today after their summer recess. Two universities that are strongholds of Islamic opposition to the Government were not reopened. Interior Minister Nabawi Ismail told reporters that ''a limited number'' of people had been detained on suspicion of involvement in seditious activities. A Government spokesman, Mohammed Hakki, put the figure at ''fewer than 100.''

A reluctant Congress wasn't the only force menacing Ronald Reagan's economic revitalization program, or his party, last week. A decidedly unvital economy was too. The condition can be called sogginess, as the White House prefers, or recessionary. But the semantics were less relevant than the numbers, especially with the 1982 political campaign already under way.

THE value of broken glass is up, waste paper is down, and the used aluminum can market is spongy, according to officials of the recycled-wastes industry. As a result, most organizations have canceled their paper drives as a means to raise money, and the Town of Islip, which operates the nation's largest recycling plant, is getting less for its aluminum and more for its glass and wondering what the future will bring. ''And if it weren't for the one-year contract we have with the Garden State Paper Company in New Jersey, we would probably be getting next to nothing for our scrap paper,'' said Thomas J. Hroncich, Commissioner of Environmental Control for the Town of Islip. ''This is the biggest problem with all recycling plants - market fluctuations,'' Mr. Hroncich said. ''It discourages a lot of small recycling programs that are vulnerable to price. And if they close down, then it's hard to get them rolling again when the price goes up.''

SUMMIT IT IS 4:27 P.M. in the emergency room at Overlook Hospital here, and half the cubicles are occupied by patients. A slim young physician moves from one curtained alcove to the next, talking reassuringly to the occupants, most of whom complain of problems familiar to most suburban emergency rooms: cuts, scrapes, sprains. But there is one more-complex diagnosis, and Dr. Charles Grunau makes it quickly: A sore throat in a 53-year-old man proves to be epiglottitis, a throat infection that in children can quickly cause swelling that closes the windpipe. ''He is a star,'' an administrative employee said of Dr. Grunau, whose work, she said, is greatly admired by everyone ''upstairs.'' Dr. Grunau may seem like a character out of ''As the World Turns,'' the television serial, but he and his colleagues have become commonplace in the state's emergency rooms. A suburban practitioner described them as ''a new breed of cat,'' specialists who have turned emergency rooms into something they have never been before: potential money-makers.

The general image of art dealers is that they inhabit a glamorous world, taking off for Zurich or Beverly Hills to sell $2-million paintings to choice collectors, entertaining clients at three-star restaurants in Paris and New York, building big homes in East Hampton, owning boats with sails designed by, say, Dubuffet. And for some of the major dealers, the picture is not all that far from the truth. As the art season goes into high gear - with galleries from Upper Madison to TriBeCa mounting an average of 300 to 400 shows a month - a look at the dealer's world reveals a boom market in the making. In the contemporary field, the accelerating return of buyers, put off by Minimalism in the 70's, has dealers rejoicing, as they delightedly display a legion of fresh talents from here and abroad. Although business is softer on the Old Master side, paintings of quality are still selling well, as the recently reported $6-million price for a Velazquez indicates.

Poised for a Fall Thanks to an inventory buildup, some economists say this week's figures on third quarter gross national product will show little or no decline from the previous level. That's the good news. The bad news is that the cumulative effect of high interest rates this year should induce a sharp cut in output in the fourth quarter. Gary Wenglowski, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, expects consumer expenditures to be flat and auto sales to remain weak, and he says residential construction may decline further. And, with the dollar still strong, exports are not likely to provide much stimulus. While output could fall as much as 4 percent this quarter, Donald Ratajczak, an economic forecaster at Georgia State University, says the positive impact of the tax cuts should take hold early next year, and help depressed sectors like housing and autos. Not surprisingly, the size of the 1982 rebound is heavily dependent on interest rates. While a rate rise may occur early next year, Mr. Ratajczak doubts that rates will reach record levels, and he says real growth should average between 2 and 4 percent on a quarterly basis.

THE chronic edginess of the Middle East, sharpened by the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat, has prompted a response that is by now familiar in the region - a rush to weaponry. As warnings rumbled out of Moscow and Washington last week, military forces were placed on heightened alert in Libya, Egypt, the Sudan and Chad. Asserting that it was trying to ''defuse the tensions through deterring possibile hostilities,'' the United States dispatched Awacs radar surveillance planes to Egypt, speeded up shipments of tanks, howitzers and F-5 trainers to the Sudan and took precautionary steps in case of an outbreak of fighting. Transfers of weapons costing billions of dollars to the Middle East have touched off an all-out arms race, increasing the danger of an explosion, military analysts warn. After failure in the early 1970's of a United States plan for regional restraints - the Soviet Union and France were not listening - the flow of American weapons rose sharply after Camp David, when Washington promised new hardware to Israel and Egypt to sweeten the peace deal.