What was going on when I was born?

The demand for oil is unlikely to grow at all this year, industry economists predict. But they also say that Saudi Arabia, by lowering its production, is both able and willing to prevent any substantial decline in the crude oil prices charged by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. ''Everyone expects 1982 to be a lackluster year as far as petroleum demand is concerned,'' said Tor Mello, chief economist for Texaco Inc. ''We had forecast about a million-barrel-a-day increase in free world petroleum demand in 1982 over 1981,'' he said. ''But in view of the changed economic outlook, we are now looking for petroleum demand in 1982 to be flat or only slightly increased.''

Until Friday, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the International Business Machines Corporation faced a common opponent: the Justice Department. But with the ending of the suits against both companies, the biggest opponents of the two uncaged giants could be each other. A.T.& T. and I.B.M., sued by the Justice Department after they came to domi nate t heir respective industries, are now finding their businesses ra pidly merging and their products overlapping. I.B.M., for instance, is a part-owner of Satellite Business Systems, a company that recently began providing, among other services, long-distance telephone transmission. A.T.& T., for its part, wants to start a computer-to-computer communications network this year.

New York City is preparing to reach into its own treasury to insure that surplus cheese, provided under a Federal plan, is made available to the poor, the city's Commissioner of General Services said yesterday. The Commissioner, Robert M. Litke, said the city would apparently have to pay to transport its 1.65 million-pound allocation of processed American cheese from state distribution points and then store it. The state is planning to store the cheese - 2.4 million pounds -in refrigerated warehouses at nine sites outside New York City when it is received in February from the Federal Government. The state's Office of General Services, which is handling the distribution, says the state does not have a refrigerated warehouse available in the city.

The Reagan Administration has asked European countries and Japan to stop supplying vital components for a new pipeline that would carry Soviet natural gas into Western Europe, according to diplomatic sources. The request follows a United States decision to ban such shipments by the General Electric Company. It is seen as the first major test of Western Europe's willingness to support, at least passively, the economic sanctions imposed by President Reagan upon the Soviet Union after the declaration of martial law in Poland. ''We'll see whether our allies are prepared to stand with us on this,'' a senior United States diplomat said. In another development, Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. said in Brussels that the United States intended to seek a framework for NATO support of sanctions against the Soviet Union unless the situation in Poland is resolved soon. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is to hold its first emergency meeting of Foreign Ministers in Brussels on Monday. (Page A13.)

Standby draft boards established over the last few months have many more female, black and Hispanic members than the boards of the Vietnam era, according to the Selective Service System. And interviews with a score of the new members in the New York metropolitan area show that their views on war and military service vary widely. ''I was a student activist,'' said a Connecticut man. ''I'm pro-E.R.A,'' said a New Jersey woman. ''I was definitely against that war - that's one of the reasons I wanted to get involved in this,'' another Connecticut man said. The new boards, authorized by Congress in 1980, are designed to mirror the racial and ethnic composition of the areas under their jurisdiction, as measured by the 1980 Census, according to Joan Lamb, a spokesman for the Selective Service System.

In the waning moments of daylight on a blustery February day in 1947, there was an unexpected rumbling beneath the frozen ground north of here. Within seconds, the future of Canada's poverty-stricken West came bursting out of a man-made hole. Vern Hunter's drilling crew had struck oil at Imperial Leduc No.1 well. Eighteen hours later the Royal Bank of Canada opened a Leduc branch. Canada's small, powerful banking fraternity has never been slow to recognize an opportunity at home and, increasingly, abroad. Now, drawn by western Canada's powerful energy boom, the bankers of Canada - and many other nations as well - have begun surging to Calgary, once a sleepy cow town.

To the Editor: I am a manufacturer of a textile product adversely affected by imports for years and very eager to present the other side of your free-trade gospel (''The Textile Industry's New Clothes,'' editorial Jan. 1). he first question is: Where would you employ the unskilled, semiskilled, legal and/or illegal immigrants if all the laborintensive jobs were to become extinct in our country? You say that the Government should encourage people like me to go out of business.

Although some people swam in the icy waters off Coney Island yesterday or ran barelegged through Central Park in displays of disdain for the cold, most showed respect as Arctic air stung the New York metropolitan area over the weekend. Snow-dusted streets in the city and suburbs were deserted and indoor roller-skating rinks proved more popular than frozen outdoor ponds as winds made the air feel like 25 degrees below zero or colder. Yesterday's temperatures plunged to 6 degrees just before midnight with a wind-chill figure of minus 25 degrees, the National Weather Service said. Lower Temperatures Today It said temperatures would drop even lower early today, perhaps equaling the record of 3 degrees for a Jan. 11 or even going lower. Some places in northern New Jersey braced for zero to minus 10 degrees. The extreme cold was expected to last until tomorrow. From midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development h andled 14,115 complaints fr om tenants who were without heat or hot water or who had related p roblems, on top of thousands of complaints Friday night and Saturday.

''It was kind of like kicking bricks.'' - George Roberts, San Diego punter, on playing in below-zero weather in Cincinnati. (C6:6.)

Joblessness in the United States wears many faces and assumes many patterns, and unfortunately for him, Cornelius Casey fits many of the patterns. If he had suspected that he was about to lose his job, Mr. Casey said the other day, he would not have spent so much to brighten Christmas for his three children. He had bought bicycles for two older sons, aged 7 and 11, and a Lone Ranger outfit and ''a bunch of toys'' for his youngest, 5-year-old Richard, when a notice came advising him that he was being laid off from a job producing roofing materials here. ''It was a real downer,'' he said. ''But I've got to find something. I've got a wife and three kids. And it kills me to just sit around.''

Citibank, New York's largest bank and the nation's second-largest, will increase the annual fee it charges on its Visa and MasterCard credit cards to $20 from $15, an official con firmed last Friday. The new rate will become effective March 2. Citibank's new fee will match that charged by the First National Bank of Chicago, the highest in the country, according to Citibank. Citibank, with more than five million accounts, is the nation's largest issuer of bank credit cards, followed by the Bank of America, the nation's largest bank.

With a force of will that overcame frostbite, numbed fingers and slashed hands, the Bengal s conquered the San DiegoChargers, 27- 7, today and moved on to their first Super Bowl. The victory - produced against one of the most powerful offensive teams in pro football history - gave the Bengals their first American Conference championship in their 14th season. It also gave them another distinction: They became the first team to go to the Super Bowl after posting a losing record the previous season. Later in the day, the San Francisco 49ers also achieved that distinction by defeating the Dallas Cowboys in the National Conference title game. The Bengals and the 49ers, who had 6-10 records last year, will meet in Super Bowl XVI on Jan. 24 at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich. The 49ers were the last team to beat the Bengals, 21-3, on Dec. 6; Cincinnati has won four straight since then, two in the playoffs.