What was going on when I was born?

The 12 stadiums where games had been scheduled were deserted, 15,000 people were out of work, restaurant and hotel business plummeted, 800,000 fans stayed home, television stations ran re-runs or showed Canadian football, and losses mounted to more than $70 million yesterday on the first weekend of the National Football League players' strike. From small-change vendors of hot dogs and souvenirs to millionaire owners and municipal concessionaires, the impact of last Tuesday's walkout - the first midseason strike in N.F.L. history - was felt in full as fans sought new diversions to take the place of the usual autumn fare of breathtaking passes and bone-jarring tackles. The effects of the walkout were minimal in the New York area, whose teams, the Giants and the Jets, were not scheduled to play at home yesterday. But in Green Bay, Cleveland, Foxboro, Mass., and other cities where weekends mean football, revenues were drying up and the tempo of life slowed to a scoreless crawl.

What began as an all-out assault ended as a negotiated surrender for the Bendix Corporation and its chairman, William M. Agee. Unsuccessful in its attempt to take over the Martin Marietta Corporation, Bendix is to become a subsidiary of the Allied Corporation and Mr. Agee an employee. The decision by Mr. Agee to drop his bid for Martin Marietta and accept a takeover by Allied would appear to end a tumultuous two years for Bendix, once a relatively obscure producer of automotive components and aircraft equipment. Although Mr. Agee will remain chairman of Bendix and become president of Allied, the ultimate decisions affecting the company will be made in Morris Township, N.J., the headquarters of Allied, and not at Bendix.

It is now just over a decade since the management of the Plaza Hotel decided to replace the Edwardian Room, the hotel's grand dining room on Central Park South, with a restaurant called the Green Tulip. And it is just over eight years since that same management realized that the whole thing was a terrible mistake and put the Edwardian Room back where it belonged. The Green Tulip looked like a restaurant in a suburban shopping mall that specializes in quiches. Since the restoration the Plaza Hotel has been through three managers, a change of ownership and innumerable renovations, but what has remained constant throughout has been an attempt to keep the building looking more or less the way it is - New York's most distinguished work of hotel architecture. This week the Plaza will be 75 years old, and there is no longer the feeling, as there was when the hotel was 65, that it is an antiquated building in need of some trendy jazzing up. The hotel's current owner, the Westin chain, has put $35 million into trying to make the Plaza look more like the Plaza of old.

In a striking reversal for the new alliance that hopes to govern West Germany, voters in Hesse state today denied the Christian Democrats a majority, gave a strong endorsement to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's Social Democrats and eliminated the Free Democrats from the state legislature. Upsetting virtually all opinion-poll predictions, the Christian Democrats won only 45.6 percent of the votes, or 52 seats in the 110-member legislature, while Mr. Schmidt's Social Democrats followed closely with 42.8 percent and 49 seats, according to official provisional results. The small Free Democratic Party, which 10 days ago abandoned Mr. Schmidt's coalition in Bonn, were eliminated from the Hesse legislature, drawing a humiliating 3.1 percent of the vote. Greens Hold the Balance Moving into a kingmaker's role was the Green Party, a loose alliance of environmentalists and foes of nuclear weapons, which won 8 percent of the vote and 9 seats. The Greens' showing appeared to confirm that since the 1980 general elections they have displaced the Free Democrats as West Germany's third party.

New orders for machine tools fell in August to the year's lowest level, the National Machine Tool Builders' Association reported yesterday. The $82.9 million of new orders placed in August was 22 percent below July's rate and 61 percent below August 1981, the association said.

Hong Kong just wants to mind its own business: making money A2 Brezhnev stresses China in tem- perate foreign policy speech A3 Jordanian King discusses Leba- non crisis with U.S. envoy A4 A refugee camp in Beirut tries to recover from Israeli attack A6 Around the World A7 Marcos's visit: ''A net plus'' A8 Argentina, after losing Falkland war, sets moderate course A9 Government/Politics White House rebuffs Donovan bid to hold up nomination of judge B2 Suit revolves around Nevada nu- clear tests B5 Washington Talk Political consultants of both par- ties and their advice A12 Days, months and years to remember A12 Required Reading A12 The Calendar A12 Briefing A12 General Around the Nation A10 Experts oppose transfer of child food aid to states A16 At 75, Plaza Hotel is determined to stay old B1 Video game producer paces Mo- hawk Valley economic revival B2 Industry/Labor Incorrect work data possibly given on union challenger A16 White House rebuffs Donovan bid to hold up nomination of judge B2 PARKING REGULATIONS Because of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, alternate-side parking will be suspended in New York City today. All other rules remain in effect. SportsMonday Baseball: Brewers' lead falls to 2 games after loss to Orioles C1 Cardinals stay cool and win with speed and defense C1 Angels' lead remains 3 1/2 games as they and Royals lose C3 Mets' victory puts Phillies 5 1/2 games behind Cardinals C4 The fondest of farewells for the retiring Willie Stargell C5 Giants beat Dodgers and tie Braves in second place C5 Red Sox defeat Yankees and Guidry, 5-2 C6 Columns: George Vecsey on the catcher who steals bases C3 Dave Anderson on getting used to Silent Sunday C6 Features: Sports World Specials C2 Question Box C9 Football: Talks stall after union rejects $1.6 billion N.F.L. pledge C1 Tailgate parties go on in sta- dium lots without game C7 Coaches, players savor a Sun- day without football C7 Colleges: Flutie gambles at quarterback for Boston College C8 Penn State's late-offense drills led to upset of Nebraska C8 Northwestern now wants a vic- tory in a Big Ten game C8 Reagan congratulates Robin- son on his 300th victory C8 Hockey: Rangers welcome re- turn of ''The Swedish Express'' C9 Horse Racing: Christmas Past wins Ruffian at Belmont C9 Outdoors: Brook trout teem in Maine waters C9 Tennis: Lendl defeats Curren to win W.C.T. tourney C4 Arts/Entertainment Why did the musical ''A Doll's Life'' fail? C11 Henry Herford, a Scot, wins American Music Competition C11 Susan Van Pelt and Dancers in varied styles C12 Eugene, Ore., opens a major con- cert hall C13 ''La Gioconda'' is sung at Metro- politan Opera C13 City Opera presents an often-ef- fective ''Tosca'' C13 Danny O'Keefe, West Coast sing- er, at Folk City C13 ''Drop-Out Father,'' TV movie with Dick Van Dyke, on CBS C14 ''Goosefoot,'' Irish mystery by Patrick McGinley, reviewed C16 Eglevsky Ballet opens season in Hempstead with Romantic bill C16 ''Silent Spring,'' environmental milestone, is 20 years old C16 Education/Welfare State and local officials discuss Boston schools situation A10 Style Relationships: getting along with a live-in servant B10 The violent child: some patterns emerge B10 In a ninth-grade class, a nuclear wind blows B10 Features/Notes New York Day by Day B3 Going Out Guide C12 News Analysis David K. Shipler on Israel's storm over Ariel Sharon A6 Editorials/Letters/Op-Ed Editorials A14 Cleaning up the Hudson River An aid nostrum backfires Brazilian opening at the U.N. Hugh Price: East New York Letters A14 Anthony Lewis: ''In the name of God, go!'' A15 William Safire: a letter to Ariel Sharon A15 Nicholas Lardy and Kenneth Lieberthal: China's divisions A15 Abbie Hoffman: nuclear waste upstate A15

The top policy-making body for the Federal courts has adopted proposals that could substantially change the conduct of Federal trials. All of the changes endorsed by the Judicial Conference will be subject to amendment or veto by Congress. The most far-reaching would affect complex civil lawsuits. The amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure would give trial judges means of limiting the extensive pretrial examination of documents and taking of testimony, called ''discovery,'' that accompanies such suits, particularly involving major corporations.

Whatever optimism existed at the National Football League labor negotiations to get closer to a contract settlement and the end of a players' strike dissipated in the usual manner tonight. A proposal was presented. A proposal was rejected. No future negotiations were scheduled and the strike continued. Today, the first Sunday without a game in the league's 63-year history, was Day 6 of the strike with no progress reported and the fourth weekend of the season in jeopardy.

ST. LOUIS WHAT Whitey Herzog instituted in 1980 was his own urban renewal plan. He went to the baseball winter meetings in Dallas, traded 13 players and acquired 10. The idea was to give the St. Louis fans a new look downtown, where the Cardinals play at Busch Stadium. And he decided it made more sense to remodel the team to suit the needs of a roomy ball park covered in artificial turf than to ask August Busch, the owner and famous beer baron, to contemplate tinkering with the outfield fences. Besides, Herzog was accustomed to managing a team that relied on speed and defense. He had had considerable success in Kansas City, where the Royals won three American League Western Division titles in his four and a half years there. Now, in St. Louis, the only time Herzog wanted the fans to think of those ponderous Clydesdales was when the organist belted out the catchy Budweiser jingle that is played as a fight song during games. It's a theme the Cardinals have heard often this season. They are on the verge of winning the National League Eastern title, which would be their first championship since they won the pennant in 1968.

The senior Israeli commander in Lebanon, Maj. Gen. Amir Drori, said today that he had no ''specific information'' that a massacre was taking place in the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in West Beirut until Saturday morning, Sept. 18, after it was all over. More than 300 Palestinian civilians from the Shatila and nearby Sabra camp were slain, mostly in Shatila, by Lebanese Christian Phalangist forces who were sent in with General Drori's approval on Thursday, Sept. 16, and withdrawn in the morning of Sept. 18. In an interview, General Drori said that he and his divisional commander for West Beirut, Brig. Gen. Amos Yaron, had an ''uncomfortable feeling'' that the Phalangists were doing something wrong on Friday morning, Sept. 17. But he said that after he and the Israeli Chief of Staff, Lieut. Gen. Rafael Eytan, met with the Phalangists at 4:30 that afternoon, they were allowed to continue their operations until Saturday morning. Once they were made aware of what had happened, General Drori said, he and General Yaron took steps to protect the civilian population around the camps.

The Martin Marietta Corporation appears to many analysts to have been battered and bloodied by its costly victory to retain its independence. They believe that its scope has been reduced, its equity cut, its debt load inflated and its earnings potential dimmed. Its future appears cloudy, they add, and the giant aerospacealuminum-cement producer may bear lasting scars. But the company is saying, in effect - wait, things aren't quite what they appear. ''The analysts' perception that our independence came too dearly is a very narrow concept,'' said William D. Keough, Marietta's director of investor relations.

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, began at sundown yesterday with the chanting of the Kol Nidre prayer, asking God's forgiveness for transgressions of the last year and pledging renewed efforts in the coming year. The holy day, the most sacred of the year, calls for a 24-hour period of self-reflection, repentance, fasting and prayer. At this Yom Kippur, rabbis of many congregations in the New York metropolitan area reflected on recent events in the Middle East. Dr. Ronald B. Sobel, senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan, said the recent killings of Palestinians in Beirut would naturally be a focus of concern in sermons on a day set aside for Jews to examine their consciences.