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.

The New Chinatown: Community in Change First of two articles. By EDWARD A. GARGAN It is New York's oldest enduring ethnic community, seemingly unchanging and insulated from the world around it. But Chinatown is being transformed. Suffused by the politics of Asia and the press of new immigrants, the Chinatown of tradition is losing ground to a Chinatown of new institutions and broadening expectations. Less than two decades ago, contained by boundaries set at the turn of the century, Chinatown was filled with an almost homogeneous population from two counties in Guangdong Province. Today Chinatown bursts with the linguistic and cultural variegation of China's 21 provinces, as well as that of Chinese peoples scattered over all of east and Southeast Asia.

Congressional staff estimates of rapidly rising Federal budgets point to the possibility that deficits of more than $100 billion a year and interest rates will chase each other higher and higher in the next several years. Preliminary calculations by the Congressional Budget Office show spending increasing by about $90 billion a year to more than $1,000 billion in fiscal 1986 and the deficit approaching $300 billion that year. These figures are acknowledged to be on the high side. But even after revision, Congressional analysts say, they are much above Administration figures and are arguably more realistic.

A renewed focus on the growing number of criminal cases has hampered a two-year-old effort to end long delays in civil cases in New York City's major trial courts, and serious backlogs in civil cases still exist in these courts, officials say. As a result, these officials say they plan to extend for at least another year a controversial program of reassigning large numbers of upstate and suburban judges to the city to preside over civil cases. Many of the upstate judges have bitterly criticized the transfer program, which began as a temporary measure two years ago. But its extension into 1982 is expected to be announced in the next few days by the state's Chief Judge, Lawrence H. Cooke.

International Reduced meat rations for all Poles except manual workers will take effect next month, the Warsaw radio announced. Officials said that the country faced a serious meat shortage and that large quantities of imports from the Soviet Union and other Communist-bloc countries would be needed to maintain the ration for miners and other manual workers at the December level. (Page A1, Column 6.) The U.S. sanctions against Poland threatened by President Reagan in response to the imposition of martial law surprised and distressed the country's military rulers, according to Polish Government sources. They said that the official view in Poland was that Mr. Reagan's restrictions on trade, Western credits and civil air rights agreements, would further isolate Poland from the West and force it to turn even more to the Soviet trading bloc. A major concern among Polish officials was that the American action would further reduce Poland's living standard, leading to extensive unemployment and social unrest and prolongation of martial law. (A1:5.)

After nearly four years of effort and amid continuing controversy, the United States Postal Service plans to introduce its new electronic mail system for businesses on Jan. 4. The service will be marketed as E-COM, an acronym for ''Electronic Computer-Originated Mail.'' The electronic service will allow a customer to dispatch messages, computer-to-computer, to 200 or more parties and be guaranteed delivery through the mail in two days. That schedule and the way the service is priced led private companies at first to deride E-COM as weak competition. By last week, however, more than 80 companies and organizations had signed up for the service. The list grows daily.

IN the end, as throughout the 31-27 loss to the Buffalo Bills yesterday, the Jets reverted to what they once had been - the masters of mistakes. In the end, on a play that began at the Bills' 11-yard line with 10 seconds remaining, an interception of Richard Todd's pass tore up the scenario of a Jet victory in the closing seconds after they had trailed by 24-0 late in the first half. But that was only the last of many mistakes. And so the Bills, not the Jets, will be in Cincinnati next Sunday as the Super Bowl playoffs continue. But for followers of the Jets, the outcome should not diminish what occurred at Shea Stadium. For more than two decades, the Baltimore Colts' 23-17 overtime victory against the Giants for the 1958 National Football League championship had been billed as the greatest football game ever played. But for sustained theater, yesterday's was better.