What was going on when I was born?

State Department officials said today that the Polish crisis had prompted new consideration within the Administration of a possible meeting between President Reagan and Leonid I. Brezhnev. The officials said that there had been no discussion with the Soviet Union about such a meeting since the imposition of martial law in Poland on Dec. 13. But they said the subject was likely to be raised if, as expected, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. meets in Geneva on Jan. 27 with Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko of the Soviet Union. However, an aide to Mr. Haig said late today that, although he would not rule out the idea of a summit conference, he was very skeptical that one would occur any time soon.

At 12:01 A.M. yesterday, exactly one minute after the United States Steel Corporation was free to buy the Marathon Oil Company, a U.S. Steel executive in Pittsburgh phoned a Bankers Trust official in Manhattan and told him to proceed ''forthwith'' to pay out $3.75 billion to Marathon stockholders for 30 million shares. The bank had decided earlier that it would deliver the checks, in person or by mail, on Monday morning. But with the cost of money so high, Wall Street professionals have been prodding the bank to hand over their checks right away so they can put their funds to work. The checks they will receive next week will represent $125 a share. For each $50 million chunk of stock - a fairly common amount on Wall Street - these big shareholders would be able to earn, if they invested the money at 15 percent, about $20,000 a day, or $80,000 from yesterday until Monday.

A movie review of ''Opera Prima'' on Wednesday gave an incorrect age for the director, Fernando Trueba. He is 25 years old.

A Federal judge has ruled that Mayor Koch has no automatic right to decide who may attend the ''town hall'' meetings that he holds periodically in New York City neighborhoods. First, the judge said, the Mayor must show that any restrictions placed on attendance are ''reasonable.'' The finding was made in a suit brought by three Park Slope residents who were excluded from a meeting that the Mayor held on Feb. 9, 1981, at John Jay High School in Brooklyn. On that evening, Mr. Koch went to the school auditorium and began by saying that he understood there were some among the 500 people present who had come to disrupt the meeting.

A rich young farmer marries into an impoverished noble family and has a terrible time, frustrated in his attempts to prove his wife's suspected infidelity to his in-laws or to society. It happens in ''George Dandin, or the Jealous Husband,'' Moliere's dark comedy, which is at the Theater of the Open Eye, 216 East 88th Street. Robert Wesley Martin plays the title role, and Mark Epstein is the director. Performances tonight, tomorrow and Sunday and Jan. 12 through Jan. 17 at 8:30 P.M., Sunday at 2:30 P.M. Tickets: $6 ($4 for students and the elderly). Information: 534-6909. JUILLIARDS IN BROOKLYN Scott Nickrenz, violist and music director of the chamber-music series at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will play in that series this weekend. He'll join the Juilliard String Quartet in the quintet by Roger Sessions, whose work the Juilliard has played often in its advocacy of 20th-century American composers. Also on the program are Haydn's Quartet in E flat major (Op. 76, No. 6) and Debussy's Quartet in G minor (Op. 10). Performances will be in the Lepercq Space at 8:30 tonight and tomorrow and 2 P.M. on Sunday. Members of the audience can meet the artists at an informal reception after tonight's performance. Tickets are $7. Information: 636-4100.

President Reagan announced today that he had decided to continue registration of young men for a possible military draft. In a marked reversal of the position he took in the election campaign, Mr. Reagan said: ''We live in a dangerous world. In the event of a future threat to Text of statement, page B5. national safety, registration could save the United States as much as six weeks in mobilizing emergency manpower.''

From the terrace of her 30th-floor apartment in Co-op City, Josephine Williams looks out on the marshes of Pelham Bay Park and beyond that to City Island. In the summer, she said, there are water skiers on Eastchester Bay. But Mrs. Williams gets a less pleasing view of the city as she crisscrosses Manhattan and the Bronx in her work as a private-duty nurse - work that lasts 10 hours a day so she can support the three of her six children who still live at home. The slender, 51-year-old woman has been a New York resident since she came here from Georgia about 40 years ago and what she sees happening now makes her very pessimistic about the future of the city. 'At the Top' in Unemployment ''I think New York City would be at the top of the list in unemployment,'' she said. ''In the murders and robbery and mugging I think you find New York among the tops. And they keep hiring more cops, but what are these people doing? They're not preventing these murders; they're not preventing these muggings and killings and all of this. It's gotten to the place where you have to think twice about going out after dark.''

Josephine Williams and Michael Davido have been New Yorkers most of their lives, she for 40 years and he for 45. They have never met, but both have raised children and worked hard, she as a nurse and he as a painter.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of the nation's business cycles, declared yesterday that the current recession began last July. It was the eighth recession pronounced by the organization since the end of World War II. It ended the shortest business upswing in at least 60 years, according to Benjamin M. Friedman, professor of economics at Harvard University and a member of the bureau's business cycle dating committee. The last recession ended in July 1980, according to the bureau.

''The continuation of peacetime registration does not foreshadow a return to the draft.'' - President Reagan. (A1:6.)

International The Polish Primate spoke out against Government demands for Polish workers to sign loyalty oaths and den ounce th eir membership in Solidarity. The Primate, Archbishop Jozef Gle mp, termed the demands ''unethical'' and said that any such declarat ions signed under coercion were ''invalid.'' He was addressing 3,000 people at a mass in Warsaw. (Page A1, Column 2.) Indictments against Polish ex-leaders were announced on Warsaw television. Officials of both the Communist Party and Government as well as industrial managers were charged with using their positions for personal gain. At the same time, the Warsaw radio announced many sentences against violators of martial law, most involving strike actions. (A9:1-4.)

President Reagan today reviewed new proposals for tax increases worth $30 billion to $35 billion for 1984, a package that was designed by his advisers to bring the 1984 Federal deficit down to $55 billion. The tax package would yield perhaps $15 billion to $18 billion in the 1983 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, according to Administration officials. They said the President would not make up his mind on the proposals until next week. Question of Unanimity The package put forward by aides to Mr. Reagan included $31 billion in spending cuts for next year as well as new revenue from such sources as higher taxes on cigarettes, liquor and other consumer goods.