What was going on when I was born?

Reviewing President Reagan's budget proposals for fiscal 1983, unceremoniously unwrapped by the White House yesterday, it was Republicans who were glumest. Last year had given them the Program for Economic Recovery. Next year, Mr Reagan says, will come the New Federalism Initiative. This year is an awkward moment in Federal revenues, Federal spending and that yawning gap in between, the Federal deficit, that last week the Administration took pains to finesse. Friday, as Mr. Reagan's chief political adv isers repaired to Camp David for a huddle on how to protect the Pres ident against political damage from the declining economy, budget dir ector David A. Stockman took to Capitol Hill to distribute advance co pies of the Administration's balance sheet and to exhort on difficult choices. Asfor Mr. Reagan, he lobbied the ''new federali sm'' with Congressmen who were once state and local officials and p repared for a swing tomorrow through the Middle West to rally the program on. (The selling of the swap, page 5.) Yesterday, the Administration diminished what was left of the ritual of bud get presentation, lifting the press embargo on the documents Mr . Stockman had passed out.

President Reagan, facing skepticism in both parties, released a Budget Message today urging Congress to ''stay the course'' by shrinking the social responsibilities of the Government while expanding the nation's military strength. As outlined in the budget for the 1983 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, the President's fiscal and economic strategy contemplates continued monetary restraint, brisk reductions of inflation and a slow decline of unemployment. The budget, whose details were disclosed Friday by Congressmen and Administration officials, projects a 4.5 percent rise in total spending to $757.6 billion and a deficit of $91.5 billion. Congressional Democrats criticized the budget as ''unfair'' and ''unworkable,'' and many Republicans expressed shock at the size of the projected deficit. (Page 28.)

A house is an asset that can be bought and sold, but it can also be traded. Ditto the condominium and cooperative apartment. Swapping houses for vacation purposes is hardly a new phenomenon. Those who operate as intermediaries in such exchanges say that they are constantly growing. This is the time of year when arrangements for the summer months are normally set in motion. Accordingly, Americans across the country who are familiar with the process are deep into an examination of the possibilities. The choices are broad, ranging from city apartments to castles in Spain, cottages in Ireland, and seaside villas in the Canary Islands or the Bahamas. Judy and Francis Furton, retired schoolteac hers from Detroit who now live in Guadalajara, Mexico, are a couple with long experience inhouse swaps. They have been exchanging with h omeowners in the United States and overseas for 20 years, they said b y telephone from Guadalajara, and this year they plan to swap again.

TRENTON HIS EIGHT years in office, Fred G. Burke, New Jersey's departing Commissioner of Education, said, were characterized by ''possibly the most sweeping'' changes in education law ''in the last quartercentury.'' ''Change under the best of circumstances is always controversial,'' Dr. Burke said in explaining, in part, the controversy that whirled around him during his tenure. The 56-year-old Commissioner was the target of frequent criticism by Governor Kean during the recent gubernatorial campaign. After the election, he was asked to relinquish his $53,000-a-year post before the expiration of his statutory term in June. He will resign as of March 31.

The Islanders' ran their winning streak to eight games, a club record, tonight with an easy 6-2 vi ctory over the Detroit Red Wings. Mike Bossy ended his scoring slump with three goals as he led the Islanders to their ninth straight victory at Nassau Coliseum. Bossy, who has 39 goals, also had two assists, giving him 88 points. John Tonelli, one of Bossy's linemates, had a pair of goals and two assists, and Bryan Trottier, who centers that line, contributed a short-handed goal and two assists. The three, who will represent the Islanders in the National Hockey League All-Star Game, Tuesday, produced a total of 12 points.

CANTERBURY A 177-year-old house that was the site of what is believed to have been the first school in the United States for black girls has become the object of a tug of war of sorts between the town, which wants to convert it to a library, and the Connecticut Historical Commission, which is restoring it as a museum dedicated to the school's founder, Prudence Crandall. The story of Prudence Crandall's effort to run her school began in 1833, a time when Canterbury was a prosperous community of well-todo farmers, and ended 18 months later, when the community's opposition to a boarding school for black girls became so violent that Mrs. Crandall was forced to close it. Today, much of Canterbury's 40 square miles of farmland has reverted to woods. Much of its work force, instead of toiling in the fields, commutes to Hartford and New London to earn their relatively high incomes. Canterbury is still a small town, and it is still almost all white. There are two black families in a population of 3,500, according to First Selectman David G. Ginnetti.

THE TRUANTS Adventures Among the Intellectuals. By William Barrett. 270 pp. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday. $15.95. IT is often a source of wonder and consternation for the powers that preside over the great opinion-making organs of our society - in government, in culture and in the media - to discover that the views so fluently disseminated by their vast enterprises have had their origin, more often than not, in the ideas and controversies of obscure intellectual coteries that seemed, at the time of their emergence, to exist at a great distance from any sort of power or influence. Yet this pattern, by which initially unknown, self-nominated intellectual elites have come - for better or for worse - to exert a decisive influence on the course of culture and society, is one that has been repeatedly traced in the history of the modern era. It is, among much else, a remarkable example of the way the power of mind in our culture acts as a goad and a challenge to the more worldly realms of power.

George Foster, a slugging star with the Cincinnati Reds for the last decade, will apparently be wearing the uniform of the New York Mets this sea son and for the next several years. Frank Cashen, the Mets' general manager who has been negotiating in Florida since Thursday with Foster's agent, Tom Reich, said yesterday in an announcement through the team's front office that ''a general meeting of the minds'' had been reached and that ''a contract could be worked out early next week that would bring Foster to New York.'' Reich, in a statement from Florida yesterday, agreed with Cashen's positive assessment of the talks. ''We had two days of very productive meetings,'' Reich said, ''and we are optimistic this matter will be brought to a successful conclusion next week.''

CENTERPORT LIGHT snow brushed softly across the deserted cobblestone drive that winds past a stand of linden trees and down to the main house on the grounds of the Vanderbilt estate. Although the museum is closed to the public for the winter, it was alive with activity as work to upgrade the facility continues throughout the cold-weather months. ''The museum is absolutely topsy-turvy,'' said Susan Ladmer, assistant director for the Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium. ''Rooms are being painted, floors are being waxed, furniture is being restored, and everything else is either covered or being rearranged.'' All the act ivity is going on in an effort to breathe new life into the museum, w hich is situated on a 43-acre estate here overlooking Long Island S ound. The museum, which was denied reaccreditation a year ago by t he American Association of Museums, is seeking to erase the stigma an d re-emerge as a viable educational and cultural institution.

ALBANY ''FLAT grants, 'save harmless' endangered'' was how Governor Carey predicted the headlines might read on the accounts of a three-year study by the New York State Special Task Force on Equity in Education. Last week the task force proposed a major restructuring of state education aid that would reduce assistance to many of the wealthier districts on Long Island and provide new aid to their poorer counterparts as well as New York City, Buffalo and other large cities. The purpose of the exercise was to respond to a court r uling that the state's complex educational formulas and property tax system werein violation of the New York State constituti on. The ruling came in asuit filed by the Levittown School District a nd 26 other districts that are relatively property-poor. The idea b ehind the ruling is thatit is unfair to have rich districts spend so much more per pupil thanpoor districts.

HARTFORD AS a political document, the state budget that Governor O'Neill has proposed to the General Assembly was tailor-made for an election year. It called for no new taxes, but it did provide for some modest increases in programs that are politically popular, such as economic development, education, road repairs and law enforcement. But most important for the Governor and most Democrats in the legislature who are up for election this fall, the budget was designed to defer bruising battles over new or higher taxes until future fiscal years - certainly until after the November elections. ''The political document that any administration presents is the budget,'' Anthony V. Milano, Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, acknowledged to reporters at a budget briefing after the Governor's speech to a joint session last Wednesday. In every bu dget,Mr. Milano said, ''the political process work s on its preparation.''

THE MAKING OF THE REPRESENTATIVE FOR PLANET 8 Canopus in Argos: Archives. By Doris Lessing. 145 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $11.95. THE questio n: Why does Doris Lessing - one of the half-dozen most interesting m inds to have chosen to write fiction in English in this century - ins ist on propagating books that confound and dismay her loyal readers ? The answer: She intends to confound and dismay. ''The Making of the Representative for Planet 8,'' the fourth in her cycle of ''visionary novels,'' is about a glacier. The glacier eats up Planet 8. Until the coming of the glacier, the brown-skinned, black-eyed vegetarian peoples of Planet 8 had known nothing but color and warmth, ''the many blues of the sky, the infinite greens of the foliage, the reds and browns of our earth, mountains shining with pyrites and quartz, the dazzle of water and of sun.'' Then the water slows with cold, ''and on its surface it wrinkles as it moves, or even, sometimes, makes plates,'' and the sun goes blind in the windwhipped snow. It is closing time in the gardens of Arcady. The horned beasts will turn north to die, icy meat.