What was going on when I was born?

First of several articles appearing this week on the second phase of President Reagan's tax cut. By KAREN W. ARENSON When President Reagan signed a new tax program into law last Aug. 13, it was heralded as a solution that would quickly revitalize the American economy and set the country on a new path to growth and prosperity. ''Our tax proposal will, if enacted, have an immediate impact on the economic vitality of the nation,'' the President declared in his first Budget Message in March 1981. Things have not worked out that way, however. The second stage of Mr. Reagan's three-year tax cut takes effect tomorrow, and it comes at a time of near-record unemployment, falling corporate profits and general economic disarray. The school of thought that inspired the tax cuts - supply-side economics, which stresses slashing taxes to bolster productivity and investment - is in dispute more than ever.

An article in Business Day on Tues- day incorrectly described the Polar- oid Corporation's reduction of its workforce earlier this year. The severance program was voluntary.

World oil prices have been consistently soft over the last month, despite Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Iran's successes in its war against Iraq and the death of King Khalid of Saudi Arabia - all factors that might have sent prices soaring a few years ago, when oil was perceived as less plentiful. ''There is a lot of new confidence among buyers that oil is available whenever it's needed,'' said John H. Lichtblau, executive director of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. Indeed, declarations by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that it has turned the oil market in its favor with a program to curb production are beginning to sound hollow, industry officials and independent analysts say. They note violations of the new quota system by OPEC's members and substantial new supplies from non-OPEC producers.

WHEN Mona Doyle, a marketing pollster, asks people if they want alternatives to the chemical preservatives in their food, most of them say yes. When she asks if they want fruits, vegetables and meat that stay fresher longer, they say yes. But when she mentions a preservation technique that promises to make those things possible, they respond, she says, by asking such half-serious questions as ''Does it make you glow in the dark?'' The technique is irradiation - exposing foods to gamma rays or electrons emitted by radioactive materials - and it may soon do to some consumer foods in this country what it has long done to cosmetics, hospital equipment, baby powders and meals astronauts have eaten on the moon and in orbit: kill off substantial amounts of bacteria in food or sterilize it altogether. The food itself does not become radioactive, just as dental and chest X-rays do not make teeth and lungs radioactive. In low doses, irradiation has little effect on taste.

The political habits of women appear to be undergoing deep changes that worry the Republicans and raise the long-range hopes of the Democrats. A variety of newly available statistics show that women, who in the past have voted at a lower rate than men, are now voting at roughly the same level. These statistics also show that women, whose political attitudes used to be barely distinguishable from those of men, are beginning to take positions on issues that differ sharply from those taken by men. These convergent developments are particularly significant, in the view of political strategists and polltakers of both major parties, because women have begun allying themselves more with Democratic positions. Origins of the Shift Many public opinion experts believe that the partisan shift in the political views of women originated with distrust of President Reagan and a fear that he was too ready to risk a war. Some believe that these attitudes may outlast the Reagan Administration in their effect on his party. But others say there is no evidence that this is more than a temporary phenomenon that may vanish after Mr. Reagan leaves office.

Flight controllers today described the space shuttle Columbia's performance on this mission, its fourth, as the ''cleanest'' of the test program, with all systems of the complex winged vehicle operating virtually trouble-free. As the astronauts exercised the shuttle's robot arm by hoisting an 800-pound payload and operated several experiments, Harold Draughon, a flight director, happily reported, ''We don't have any meaningful problems to work on.'' The only serious concern continued to center on the loss of the shuttle's two solid-fuel booster rockets, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Fla., after the Columbia's launching. An investigation is under way to determine why the spent rocket motors, designed to be recovered and re-flown, hit the water at about 360 miles an hour, about six times the planned velocity, and apparently broke apart.

red ripe tomatoes and that consummately delicious seasonal delight, corn on the cob. All are welcome and familiar tastes, of course, and mere anticipation of them helps extend the pleasures of eating at this time of year. For the curious and imaginative cook, however, something else is needed - an ability to assess a proven dish and change it slightly to make it new or easier to prepare. Summer may be a fine time to linger for hours at the dinner table on a pleasant evening, but it is not a good time to linger for hours in a hot kitchen. The improvisations might simply involve a different slant to the flavor or texture of a favored dish, something that can often be accomplished by the merest nuance - a change in seasoning, for instance. Sometimes such alterations might involve shortcutting the cooking procedure. A special favorite dish of mine, which I first dined on years ago in Vietnam, is cha gio (it is pronounced chah-jo), an appetizer of deep-fried meat and seafood that is served wrapped in lettuce leaves. Cha gio seems to me an ideal start for a summer evening's meal, something spicy and crunchy to set the diner up for a cold soup, an elegant salad and the main course - all accompanied, naturally, by a chilled bottle of wine.

The Treasury sold $4 billion of four-year notes yesterday at a price that produced the highest interest cost in more than three months. The average rate at the auction was 14.96 percent, the highest since the 14.05 percent at the auction of last March 24. The record average rate on such notes was 15.91 percent, set on Sept.23, 1981. Dealers had expected a rate near 15 percent since Monday morning, but signs that a lower one might result helped snap the credit market out of its torpor before the auction results were announced.

The Treasury sold $4 billion of four-year notes at a price that produced the highest interest cost in more than three months. The average rate at the auction was 14.96 percent, the highest since the 14.05 percent recorded last March 24. The record average rate on such notes was 15.91 percent, set on Sept. 23, 1981. (Page D1.) Stock prices held steady, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 0.28, to 812.21. Despite the market's resilience this week, however, some analysts expected further declines. (D8.) The value of the dollar fell sharply in foreign currency trading. Gold prices rose $4.25 an ounce, to $314.25, in New York. (D12.) Livestock and meat futures prices were mostly lower. (D12.)

When he was 18 years old, Bernard Korn was a G.I. stationed in the South Pacific and he used to worry that he would never return to the United States alive. Mr. Korn survived the war, and now, almost 40 years later, he is fighting to keep his company alive. When he founded the Colonial Commercial Corporation back in 1964, all went well - for a while. The commercial finance company developed into a holding company with four principal subsidiaries: Big Smith, a maker of jeans and western wear; Monroc, which makes concrete; Homeowners Equities, which sells second mortgages, and Colonial Leisure, which owns a vacant plot of land in Atlantic City and the hope of someday erecting a casino on it. Colonial also funded plans of reorganization for companies that were emerging from bankruptcy. But the economy turned sour, taking Colonial with it - to bankruptcy court. For the last seven months, Mr. Korn has been struggling to resuscitate Colonial, something he hopes to accomplish soon.

Think of Gramercy Park, that intimate enclave of green in Manhattan. Sanaye Park in the center of Beirut used to be very similar to it. Sanaye Park today is a place of graceful trees - weeping willows and bougainvillea. It is also filled with desperate refugees uprooted by the Israeli invasion that began June 6. There are hundreds of them living in the small park. The more fortunate have tents. Many are living in crude lean-tos, some of them fashioned from colorful tablecloths that once graced the dining-room tables of evacuated or destroyed homes.

A coalition of 36 Brooklyn churches announced plans yesterday to build 5,000 single-family town houses in blighted sections of Ocean Hill, Brownsville and East New York. The three areas are among several in Brooklyn that have experienced severe housing abandonment and devastation in the last decade. Beginning next March, the group, East Brooklyn Churches, plans to build 1,000 homes within a year and 4,000 more by 1987, according to a spokesman for the coalition, the Rev. Johnnie Ray Youngblood of St. Paul's Community Baptist Church. In a news conference at the Harley Hotel in Manhattan, the Rev. Francis J. Mugavero, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, said that the coalition had established a $12 million fund that would make interest-free loans to the builders of the homes and that it was asking the Koch administration to provide $10 million from Federal community development funds for loans for home buyers.