What was going on when I was born?

A working lunch of the National Security Council had just adjourned in the Cabinet Room of the White House early Friday afternoon when President Reagan said to Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., ''Al, may I see you for a moment?'' It was then, according to White House aides, that a stunned Secretary Haig learned that his offer to resign, made the day before, had been accepted, and that Mr. Reagan had selected George P. Shultz, a former Treasury Secretary, to replace him. Later in the afternoon, it was Mr. Haig who in turn stunned Mr. Reagan and his staff members by putting into his resignation letter a parting blast at the Administration. In recent months, Mr. Haig said, foreign policy had shifted from the ''careful course'' originally established by the President and himself.

HARTFORD THE General Assembly will begin another special session tomorrow in a rare bipartisan mood to deal quickly with flood relief and a few other matters and adjourn before election-year politics can intrude. If the legislative leaders of both parties can meet their goal of completing work by Wednesday, it would be in sharp contrast to the legislature's last special session on state fiscal problems, which dragged on for more than two months before ending last January. ''Here you have an emergency,'' said Richard F. Schneller, Democrat of Essex, the Senate majority leader, of the flood that struck the state on the weekend of June 5 and 6. ''We want to get programs in place.''

THE CORRESPONDENCE OF BORIS PASTERNAK AND OLGA FREIDENBERG 1910-1954. Compiled and Edited, With an Introduction, by Elliott Mossman. Translated by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin. Illustrated. 365 pp. New York: A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. $19.95. THIS splendid book, excellently translated and edited and handsomely turned out, is an unexpected gift, a work of art salvaged from the physical and spiritual ruins of terrible years. Its rescue is largely due to Olga Freidenberg, who managed to save most of the letters and to preserve some cherished memories in a journal from which Elliott Mossman quotes liberally and which he describes as ''a retrospective diary of her life, composed in her last years.'' In essence, this collection, a historical and literary document of the first importance, is a dual self-portrait, all unconsciously drawn, by two gifted, courageous people, whose story adds a heroic chapter to the tragic annals of our century. Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg were cousins. Their fathers, Leonid Pasternak and Mikhail Freidenberg, had had known each other since their boyhood in Odessa. Leonid's sister, Ann, married Mikhail, and later, when the Freidenbergs settled in St. Petersburg and the Pasternaks in Moscow, they exchanged frequent visits and spent summers together. The children were playmates always; and Olga and Boris, who were born in the same year, were fast friends. Their correspondence begins in the spring of 1910, when they were 20.

For Billie Jean King, every match at Wimbledon is an adventure these days. Last Thursday, the 38-year-old Mrs. King played her 100th singles match at the All England Club. No other tennis player is close to equaling that record. Today, Mrs. King recovered from triple match point in the second set for a 5-7, 7-6, 6-3 victory over Tanya Harford of South Africa. The triumph, her 88th since she first played here in 1961, moved her into the last 16.

The Yankees, who complained last month when a practice was called on a day off, were forced to work overtime last night for the second straight Saturday night. Partly because of Graig Nettles's 300th home run and Butch Wynegar's run-scoring single with two out in the ninth inning, and partly because of their own mistakes, the Yankees played their first 17-inning game since Aug. 2 and 3, 1978. were tied with Cleveland, 3-3, after 15 innings. As Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, the Yankees seemed certain to be stopped by the American League curfew, which does not permit an inning to start after 1 A.M. But the Yankees loaded the bases and Nettles scored the winning run at 1:08 A.M. when Ken Griffey, who was 0 for 6 and a walk up to that point, and hitless in his 20 times at bat. hit a sacrifice fly to right field, for a 4-3 victory. Early in the evening, Butch Wynegar's passed ball allowed the first Cleveland run to score, and a balk by Dave Righetti led to the second. Late at night and early in the morning, the Yankees left three runners at third base in the extra innings.

winning author who died at his home in Ossining on June 18, organized a club 16 years ago that he once described as "about as private as a telephone booth." His fellow members recalled it last week as a modest but scintillating salon. It was called the Friday Club and, most of the time, had four members who gathered every Friday for two hours of conversation and lunch. They were usually men who kept no office hours or who worked alone.