What was going on when I was born?

Caught in the worst financial crisis in its 20-year history, Channel 13, WNET-TV, the New York metropolitan area's major public television station, has abruptly postponed a multimillion dollar series and is likely to lay off staff and reduce programming. Channel 13 has a deficit of $6 million, a record liability largely attributed to operating The Dial, a two-year-old magazine of listings and articles about public television. The magazine has proven such a drain that some employees at the station now refer to it as ''Channel 13's Vietnam.'' ''The Dial has bled us,'' said Walter Goldstein, vice president of finance and administration at the station. ''It was a disaster from the beginning,'' added James Kobak, a magazine consultant who was brought in to analyze the magazine's problems late last year.

Under pressure from Congressional leaders, President Reagan today proposed a five-year, $32.9 billion program to repair highways and bridges and to assist mass transit projects. He proposed paying for the program mainly with an increase in the Federal gasoline tax and asked that Congress approve the program in its special session beginning Monday. The President's proposal came a day after Congressional leaders from both parties agreed to press for similar legislation, with or without Mr. Reagan's support. They had threatened to seize the initiative by directing their aides to draft a bill.

Alexander Theroux is the author of ''Darconville's Cat,'' published last year by Doubleday. IT was in July 1851 on one of his famous hikes - or ''excursions,'' as he'd prefer it - carrying a knapsack, a botany book (for pressing flowers) and his huge umbrella without which he rarely went anywhere that Henry David Thoreau visited the town of Plymouth, where a little more than 200 years before the first Thanksgiving had been celebrated. A mad antiquarian and eminent student of history, he characteristically poked about the relics of Pilgrim Hall and peered into the ancient records in the Plymouth County Courthouse, and then, over a driftwood fire, he cooked a giant clam that made him sick for days. There is no record of his eating turkey. He ate moose meat in Maine. He loved the taste of roasted horned pout. And he was fond of chewing acorns (''as agreeable to the palate as the mother's milk to the babe.'')

Now it begins again, the season of tinsel and white lights, the time that is supposed to be the best of times and yet so often is not. Tomorrow comes Thanksgiving, and after it the explosion of Hanukkah and Christmas, like a balloon filled with spangles bursting. And then there is the hilarity of the New Year, and life begins again. Thanksgiving came early this week for the six women in Marilyn Graubert's group: Mary, Christina, Bella, the other Mary, Maria and Emma. There were bialys with butter and one of those chocolate cakes with jimmies on top that look better than they taste, and while it may not have been what others are used to, no big bird browned in a slow oven or sweet potatoes glossy with butter, it was still something to mark the holiday, some way to feel part of the cycles of life.

Governor Kean, in a special address to the State Legislature today, proposed a package of budget cuts and tax increases on gasoline and alcoholic beverages to avoid what he said was a possible $150 million budget deficit in this fiscal year. Mr. Kean, a Republican, urged both houses, which are controlled by the Democrats, to reconvene on Monday and to stay in session until they had adopted either his tax program or one of their own to balance the $6.2 billion budget. Mr. Kean blamed the current problems on the nation's sluggish economy, which he said had depressed tax collections. But he said the state also faced a possible $500 million deficit for the 1983 fiscal year, which starts July 1. He attributed this possible deficit to unrealistic promises contained in the state's pension and aid programs, which outstrip the revenues designed to support them.

A self-styled leader of a group charged with several armored-car robberies and murders pleaded guilty to Federal charges yesterday, representing the first conviction growing out of the 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County. The guilty plea was made in Manhattan by Tyrone Rison, a 35-yearold Georgia resident, who agreed to cooperate with Federal authorities, providing a major breakthrough in the investigation. Mr. Rison admitted his own participation in the 1979 escape from a New Jersey prison of Joanne Chesimard and in several armored-car robberies, including a 1981 Bronx robbery that involved the killing of a Brink's guard. Miss Chesimard, a former leader of the Black Liberation Army, had been serving a life term for the slaying of a New Jersey state trooper in May 1973.

A dance review on Monday incorrectly described two works by the Ohio Ballet. The dances, ''Songs Without Words'' and ''Excursions,'' had their East Coast premieres Nov. 12 and 13 at the Hub Entertainment Center in Hempstead, L.I.

''This is a sad day for the American public. Pure and simple, today's action means that the Government does not want television broadcasters to attempt to govern themselves by voluntarily limiting the amount of advertising broadcast into the public's homes.''

The Government reported today that consumer prices rose by five-tenths of 1 percent in October, a little more than expected but not enough to disturb the projection that inflation for 1982 will be down to roughly 5 percent. But prices in the New York-northeastern New Jersey area increased by a sharp 1.5 percent, three times the national rise. (Page D3.) With the national index up 4.9 percent so far this year, President Reagan, in comments during a Rose Garden ceremony, said that ''it's still in the 5 percent range.'' An assistant commissioner of labor statistics, John Early, said he, too, expected the advance of the Consumer Price Index to be about 5 percent for the year - the smallest increase since the 4.8 percent rise recorded in 1976. Last year's rise was 7.1 percent.

Our man from Alaska goes over big in Brasilia A2 U.S. embassy families can return to Salvador A3 U.S. weighs arms aid for Guatemala A3 Vote-weary Irish doing it again A5 Gulf war said to strengthen mod- erate Arab countries A6 Around the World A9 Andropov is added to top state body in Soviet Union A10 Gemayel urged to counter Baalbek uprising A14 Soviet calls MX plan new, costly step in arms race A19 Washington Talk Briefing A20 Working Profile: Jack Valenti A20 Working Profile: Charles D. Ferris A20 The Muskie line on '84 A20 HOLIDAY TOMORROW Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Following are holiday schedules: Parade - Begins 9 A.M. at 77th Street and Central Park West; moves south to Columbus Circle, down Broadway to Herald Square, ending at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue. Parking - Sunday regulations. Sanitation - No collections;no street cleaning. Federal, state and municipal offices - Closed. Post offices - Closed; special delivery and express-mail delivery only. Banks - Closed. Stock and commodity markets - Closed. Transportation - Subways, buses, Long Island Rail Road and Conrail on holiday schedules. Libraries - Closed. Schools - Closed tomorrow and Friday.

The Reagan Administration said today that it welcomed Yuri V. Andropov's interest in a relaxation of tensions and was ready ''to respond positively to any positive Soviet action.'' At the same time, however, the Administration said that the speech Monday by the new Soviet Communist Party leader ''contained no substantive change in familiar Soviet positions.'' It also said that Mr. Andropov, in casting doubt on American sincerity at the arms control negotiations in Geneva, had misrepresented Washington's position. The American statement was issued by the State Department in advance of a luncheon meeting between Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the first extended session held by the two sides since the death of Leonid I. Brezhnev two weeks ago. Mr. Shultz and Vice President Bush had a 30-minute meeting with Mr. Andropov in Moscow last week.

The broadcasting industry and the Justice Department agreed today to eliminate restraints on the duration of television commercials. The consent decree, later signed by Federal District Judge Harold H. Greene, also raised the possibility that eventually all restrictions would be dropped, including those governing the content of advertising, according to broadcasting officials. The decision settles an antitrust suit that the Justice Department brought against the National Association of Broadcasters on July 14, 1979, charging that it was illegal for the members of the trade group to agree to restrict advertising. The three major networks and their affiliates are members of the industry's leading trade group.