What was going on when I was born?

The No. 1 topic of conversation in a lower Manhattan firehouse this weekend was the possibility that women may be joining the firefighting ranks in New York City. Wariness and skepticism greeted the news that as a result of a ruling by a Federal judge last Friday, up to 45 women might be appointed as city firefighters. New York would be alone among the nation's largest cities in having that many women on the fire lines. However, there are several smaller cities with a number of women fighting fires, and an engine company in Seattle is commanded by a woman.

With the stock market battered to a 22-month low in some of the heaviest trading in the history of the New York exchange, Wall Street's leading money managers say no sustained improvement is likely without a sizable drop in interest rates. The market, they contend, is ''anticipating'' the future as usual, and what it is anticipating now is that the economic recovery promised for late 1982 will be either anemic or delayed as long as interest rates remain at current levels. As unemployment and the downward revision of profit estimates mounted during the past few weeks, ''there has been an unraveling of the economic consensus that the economy will begin to recover by mid-1982,'' said Eric Miller, chief of investment policy for the Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation. ''Right now the stock market is reflecting the selling by people who were slow to perceive that the economy has worsened to a greater degree than anyone expected,'' said Seth M. Glickenhaus, chairman of Glickenhaus & Company, a leading portfolio management firm. ''Just how low the market is going to go and when it will start to anticipate an economic recovery depends on the length of the recession-depression we are now in.''

A correction Saturday incorrectly described the Fusion Energy Foundation. It is a group that favors the use of nuclear power.

As soldiers with automatic weapons stood guard, Guatemalans voted today in elections for President, Vice President, members of Congress and municipal officials. Guatemalans say that if the elections are not tainted by fraud, as they have frequently been in the past, and if the army allows the people's choice to assume the presidency of Central America's most populous country, there is a possibility they could lead to a peaceful solution to the civil war here. At gas stations, schools, commercial arcades and municipal buildings, people waited in block-long lines for five or six hours before having their identification cards checked and receiving the three large paper ballots, one for President and Vice President, one for the national Congress and the third for municipal officials. Elections 'Our Last Chance' ''The elections are our last chance and everybody knows it,'' said a political leader. It is an assessment heard often here, from Guatemalans and United States officials.

''I'm not going to say the energy crisis is over, but we are certainly heading in the right direction.

There are penguins, polar bears and red pandas, but there are no elephants, antelopes or zebras. And there are no bars in the plans for a new Central Park Zoo - moats and glass will keep people and animals apart. Next month the New York Zoological Society will make public its final proposals for a new zoo divided into three zones: tropical, temperate and polar. Almost all the old zoo's boxlike red brick buildings will be gone, as will all the cages. The animal homes will be built to look and feel like the animals' natural habitats - the polar bears will have a pool, the penguins a blizzard-making machine.

Larry Bird, the Boston Celtics' top scorer, was recovering from surgery on a fractured cheekbone and missed his fourth consecutive game. Nate (Tiny) Archibald, the playmaker, had damaged ligaments in his right wrist and was out for nine games. So when Gerald Henderson, Archibald's understudy, left today's game against the Knicks with three personal fouls and 5 minutes 34 seconds remaining in the first quarter, it appeared the Celtics would have another disadvantage. Enter Danny Ainge, the former Toronto Blue Jays infielder who is now a rookie Celtic playmaker and scorer. In 28 minutes, the most playing time Ainge has had since joining the Celtics last Dec. 9, he scored 16 points and made seven steals in a 107-106 victory at the Boston Garden. It was the seventh consecutive victory for the Celtics, the Atlantic Division leader.

''I hear all sorts of people saying, 'To think I voted for Reagan,' '' said James M. Seidelman, a 37-year-old union pipefitter at the Oldsmobile plant in Lansing, Mich. ''Well, I'm one of them. ''I used to have the feeling that when things got in trouble, Republicans could fix them. But I guess I was wrong. If things keep going like they are, four or five years Lansing will be a ghost town.''

A Reagan Administration austerity program that called for closing 75 of the Government's 348 weather stations has run into unpredicted protests, forcing Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige to reverse the plan in part. The program, put in motion in January, would have pared the National Weather Service's 5,000-worker payroll by 219 people and saved an estimated $4.6 million, according to the Administration. Among the weather stations designated for closing were those at all three major airports in the New York area and the one at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Their work was to be shifted to private forecasters or to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Oil companies continued to dominate a list of the nation's 25 largest nonfinancial concerns in 1981 in terms of revenues, but profits of the big biggest petroleum producers were lower across a broad front as a worldwide oversupply kept a lid on oil prices. Revenues of the top 25 concerns were held to an average advance of only 13.4 percent, as inflation, the depressed economy and high interest rates combined to keep consumers on the sidelines. A strong dollar abroad also took a toll on earnings. The Exxon Corporation, which moved into the No.1 slot in 1978, easily held its position as the nation's biggest company, with revenues of nearly $115 billion. However, the double-digit percentage increases in revenues previously rung up by the major oil producers appear to be fading fast.

Two women and five girls who were on their way to church services were killed this morning in a fiery crash between their car and a fuel-oil truck. Among the victims were a mother and her three daughters. The two vehicles collided at the intersection of Sussex Avenue and First Street near Branch Brook Park. After the impact, both skidded about 100 yards across the rain-soaked pavement and slammed into a chain-link fence. The car was pinned under the fuel truck, and both exploded in flames.

Plunging stock market prices are linked directly to high interest rates, according to top money managers. Unless rates come down sharply and soon, they fear a further deterioration in corporate profits and the value of shares in the affected companies. (Page D1.)