What was going on when I was born?

''Forty-five percent of the phone calls from customers go unanswered. A customer can be on the phone for 20 minutes without reaching a Transit Authority representative.

Israeli gunboats and artillery bombarded Palestinian camps and residential neighborhoods of west Beirut today, and the blockade of the area created serious shortages of food, gasoline and some medical supplies. ''The Israelis have closed all the roads leading into west Beirut,'' Prime Minister Shafik al-Wazzan said at a news conference. ''They have stopped all food supplies and have cut electricity and water. The situation is becoming desperate. I call on the world to wake up to the realities of this criminal siege.''

The Southeast's current unemployment problem may be a sign of underlying troubles that could hinder the ability of the region's industries to remain competitive. Although many Northerners perceive the Sun Belt as one continuous flow of prosperity, five of the nine Southeast states had unemployment rates higher than the national average in May. (Page A1.)

A subsidiary of the Olympia Brewing Company, which agreed last month to be acquired by the Pabst Brewing Company, is offering to buy 4 million shares, or about 49 percent of Pabst, at $25 each, or a total of $100 million. Pabst shareholders now have two competing tender offers from which to choose. Several weeks ago, Irwin L. Jacobs, a Pabst shareholder who earlier this year led an unsuccessful proxy fight for control of Pabst, offered to buy 3.2 million shares, or about 39 percent of the company's stock, for $24 each.

On a day as bright as a diamond, New Yorkers and their suburban neighbors flocked to beaches and parks, an armada paraded on the Hudson and shrieking squadrons of jet fighters put on a spectacular show yesterday, as the long Fourth of July weekend drew to a close. It was a day of near perfection, with a brilliant sun glinting on emerald city greenswards, soft coastal breezes caressing rollers into whitecaps and azure skies arching over a metropolitan landscape crowded with sunbathers, bikers, disco roller-skaters, ballplayers and backyard barbecue chefs. For accompaniment, there were jazz and pop concerts, barrages of rattling firecrackers and the occasional thunder of cherry bombs and ashcans. And, starting in late afternoon, there was the added rumble of traffic as hundreds of thousands of holiday travelers streamed home from the day's activities or from weekend retreats.

International West Beirut was bombarded by Israeli gunboats and artillery, while ground troops continued the blockade of the Moslem half of the capital, where Palestinian guerrillas are encamped, causing serious shortages of food, gasoline and some medical supplies. An end to the Israeli siege, intended to force out the Palestine Liberation Organization and its members, was demanded by Prime Minister Shafik al-Wazzan, who called the siege ''criminal.'' (Page A1, Col. 6.) Restoring the cease-fire in Lebanon was essential, the United States said and called on Israel to observe a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that the Israeli blockade of supplies to west Beirut be lifted. (A8:1-2.)

The Treasury, faced with the prospect of huge budget deficits, is counting on a reversal of the current big cash drain from United States savings bonds to help solve its financing problems. Savings bonds have long paid a much lower rate of interest than marketable Government securities and other top-quality investments but it now appears they may once again become attractive to buyers. The Senate Finance Committee approved late last week a Treasury proposal to raise the yield on savings bonds, now a maximum of 9 percent over eight years, to 85 percent of the rate paid on five-year Treasury notes. If this formula were to be put into effect now, the savings bond rate would jump to 11.8 percent.

Continental Airlines and Texas International Airlines disclosed yesterday that all but one of their major lenders had agreed in principle to restructure a total of $295 million of the sibling carriers' long-term debt. Frank Lorenzo, president of the Texas Air Corporation, the two airlines' corporate parent, said of the verbal agreement: ''This is a strong vote of confidence for both companies and for our proposed financial consolidation. The agreement is an important part of our plan to return both companies to long-term profitability.'' Aviation specialists on Wall Street tended to agree that the restructuring, if completed, would significantly improve the airlines' financial condition and soften the public impression, merited or not, that Continental in particular might not survive. But they remained unconvinced that the measures go far enough.

A group of business executives who spent a year studying the New York City subway system from within report that they have found archaic procedures, inefficient use of manpower, confused lines of authority and woeful customer relations. The executives paint a picture of a public agency with a $2 billion budget Excerpts from report, page B4. whose telephones go unanswered, inventory practices are 40 years old and where carbon paper abounds in an era of computerization. The report, which includes recommendations in 19 areas, also portrays the Transit Authority management as eager to improve its operations. In virtually every area, the recommendations, which have already been made to the authority, have been adopted or are under serious consideration.

Argentina's new Economics Minister tonight announced an emergency economic program of strict controls that would include a devaluation of the peso to deal with an economy he said is ''in a state of destruction without precedence.'' Jose Maria Dagnino Pastore, who took over as Economics Minister Friday in the new Government of President Reynaldo B. Bignone, said in a 15-minute national television speech that the open financial system that had been the crux of the nation's experiment in a free market economy had deteriorated into an ''explosive situation'' and would be restructured ''from its foundations.'' The war for the Falklands further damaged what the Minister admitted was Argentina's ''chaotic'' economy, but he did not blame the conflict for the economic crisis. Mr. Dagnino Pastore did not give many details on the announced measures, including the intended devaluation, but said that the Government would impose strict controls on interest rates, imports, currency exchange transactions and the printing of money. At the same time, he said, salaries for Government workers would be increased by an unspecified amount to compensate for inflation.

The Koch administration plans to continue tax breaks for the upgrading of residential housing, even though the state legislation that authorized such incentives has lapsed, New York City officials said yesterday. Critics of the tax incentive program said they would challenge the city's plans in court. Koch administration officials said that, while they were awaiting a formal legal opinion, they thought they could still grant the tax incentives. Legal Assurance Cited ''My legal folks believe it does continue,'' said Anthony B. Gliedman, Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development. The subject of the dispute is a tax incentive program known as J-51, which is the most important and probably the most controversial of the city's tools to encourage housing development.

When times were best, the 60 acres of tobacco on the C.F. Woodford & Son farm here would have tickled a young man's waist by now. Perhaps 350 workers, including a strapping teen-ager named Donald Carville, would have begun trimming the less hardy leaves and preparing the barns. Traditionally, on the morning after the Independence Day fireworks display, a summer of picking tobacco and making money would commence. This summer, 30 years later, hardly anything is the same. Tobacco is growing on only 10 acres of the Woodford farm, and it stops at knee level. Donald Carville, now the manager, will hire only 40 youngsters a week.