What was going on when I was born?

Although shoppers were much in evidence on Saturday, many of the nation's merchants, after a difficult Christmas season, are facing the final month of their last 1981 fiscal quarter with discomfort. More than a few believe it will show the scars of erratic sales and the costly markdowns taken during the first four weeks of December. The outlook for the fourth quarter, which for retailers ends on Jan. 31, is cloudy, a special source of concern since the period normally provides more than 50 percent of the year's profits and 30 percent of sales. But most analysts see the quarter's results as unchanged or down from the 1980 quarter. They also see it as an uncertain harbinger for the early months of the new fiscal year.

The Warsaw radio announced today that meat rations for all Poles except manual workers would be reduced next month. As the third week of martial law began for Poland, officials said that the country faced a serious shortage of meat supplies and that large quantities of imports from the Soviet Union and other countries in the Communist bloc would be needed to maintain the ration for miners and other manual workers at the December level. The shortage of meat and other commodities was one of the causes of the birth of the Solidarity free trade union, which has led protests against the Government, in the summer of 1980. Productivity Said to Improve The announcement of a further reduction in meat rations was in contrast to official reports of a gradual return to work and improved productivity despite continuing resistance by 1,111 coal miners in the Piast mine in Silesia.

''I can assure you there will be responses to the Soviets specifically, not simply the Polish Government.'' -Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, chief United States delegate to the United Nations. (A12:1.)

Retailers face the last month of their fiscal year with concern. Many fear the early markdowns taken to buoy erratic holiday sales will undercut traditional January bargain shopping, further weakening the most important quarter of the retailing year. (Page D1.)

Capital appropriations made in the third quarter by investor-owned gas and electric utilities fell 37 percent, to $11.2 billion, on a seasonally adjusted basis, from an expansive second quarter, the Conference Board reported over the weekend. However, actual capital expenditures by these utilities rose 8 percent from the second quarter, to a record $8.6 billion, the business research organization said. Capital appropriations are authorizations for plans to spend funds in the future, marking the first step in the capital investment process and preceding the ordering of equipment and the letting of construction contracts. Capital expenditures are actual outlays for plant and equipment.

A photograph of Brig. Gen. James L. Dozier was received today by the Milan bureau of ANSA, the Italian news agency, 10 days after he was abducted by terrorists. It was accompanied by a statement announcing that the 50-year-old general had been placed on trial. The Red Brigades, the leftist guerrilla group, had claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and vowed that General Dozier would be subjected to a ''proletarian trial.'' The general, who is deputy chief of staff for logistics and administration at NATO headquarters for southern Europe in Verona, is the first American abducted by the Red Brigades.