What was going on when I was born?

In 1914, workers completed one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most spectacular houses, a large residence in Wayzata, Minn., built for Mr. and Mrs. Francis Little. About 60 years later, the house was headed for demolition until its impending doom was brought to the attention of the Metropolitan Museum of Art by a former apprentice to Wright, Edgar Tafel, a New York architect.

President Reagan and his crew, apparently concerned about the political effects of not attempting to do something about the deadin-the water economy, were back at their charts last week. One new course said to be under study by the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs would award tax breaks to employers who provided jobs.

HARTFORD AS the call to 911 for emergency assistance was dialed, a digital readout at the public-safety answering point immediately flashed the telephone number from where the call originated. Simultaneously, data flashed on a small screen with the name and address listed for the telephone where the call was made, plus other information including whether the calling number was at a residence, a business or a pay phone. With a touch of a button, the call can be transferred automatically, if necessary, to the appropriate agency, such as a fire company or an emergency medical service, in the town where the call originated. State legislators and local police and fire officers looked on approvingly last Monday as executives of the Southern New England Telephone Company demonstrated the new system, known as the Enhanced 911 Emergency Number Service, at a hearing room in the State Capitol.

Radiologists say they have developed another revolutionary technique for medical diagnosis that they expect to perform significantly better and more safely than the advanced X-rays that overtook the field only a decade ago. Instead of using X-rays, the new diagnostic device produces pictures that are based on the responses of atomic nuclei in a magnetic field. The device, called nuclear magnetic resonance, or N.M.R., produces images of internal tissues that are similar to the computerized, cross-sectional X-ray pictures made by the so-called CAT scanners. Although it has not yet been established as completely risk-free, the new method appears to be far safer than established diagnostic techniques that depend on X-rays, injected contrast solutions and radioactivity. Studies also indicate that the new technique will yield sharper pictures and show more distinctions than CAT scanners.

WASHINGTON THE mood music from Washington and Moscow in the last few weeks has been comparatively upbeat. Leaders on both sides were busy welcoming each other's protestations about improving relations and getting on with the business of arms control. But the general expectation seems to be that little or nothing concrete is likely to happen in the next months. Yuri V. Andropov, the new General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, is expected to use the coming weeks primarily to consolidate his power and focus on internal economic changes. President Reagan, officials said, will be concentrating on winning support for his expanding Pentagon budget - including his decision, announced last week, to deploy the MX missile. Senior Adminstration officials feel resumption of detente through arms control would undercut that effort.

NOT since the Civil War, some joked last week, had two states battled so much. Charges were traded, negotiations broke down and - although no shots were fired - prisoners were taken into custody. It was the Great Token War, which erupted after Connecticut issued new turnpike tokens, on sale in bulk for 17 1/2 cents, that fit perfectly into New York City's subway turnstiles. A 75-cent trip for 17 1/2 cents? Great idea, thought some Connecticut residents. ''I'll give them as holiday gifts,'' suggested one man. But when the tokens began showing up in subway turnstiles, New York City cracked down. By midweek, more than a dozen people had been arrested at Grand Central Terminal, the end of the line for Conrail's New Haven trains. They were charged with unlawful use of a slug, a Class B misdemeanor.

LAST year, Betsy Ratner had a computer ''at my disposal every minute of the day'' to help her teach gifted and talented children in Guilford's Melissa Jones Elementary School. This year, Mrs. Ratner has to scramble to find space on a crowded sign-up sheet for computer use at the school. The difference a year makes, according to both Mrs. Ratner and state education officials is that teachers are overcoming a general reluctance to use computers; students are extremely eager to work with them and their motivation to learn has increased because of computers; prices of the machines ($1,200 to $3,500) are within reach of many school districts and parent-teacher organizations, and more computer programs are available for classroom use. Public schools in Connecticut ''are buying computers daily,'' said Betty Glass, a computer technology consultant for the State Education Department. There's no question, she said, that computers are seen as the best way to prepare today's students for a world of increased use of technology in virtually all areas of life.

empty Willwood Gardens complex in September, has ordered the remaining 120 families to get out by Tuesday - but the tenants have said they won't go. Instead, the tenants have charged that the city is trying to get rid of low-and moderate-income families in order to improve its buildings to attract middle-income families. Several tenant leaders recently followed V. J. Ferrandino, the City Planning Commissioner, to White Plains and attacked him publicly while he was making a speech on ''recycling old buildings'' - a speech they said proved their point. The tenants are also planning two lawsuits, one to prevent the evictions and the other for $15 million to $20 million for damages because of the conditions in which the tenants have been living, according to William D. Falow, their lawyer.

WASHINGTON AS members of Congress return to the capital tomorrow for a postelection session, the Long Island delegation will face a heavy workload with an eye out for defense spending that will affect the Island. High among the military spending issues will be the fate of the Air Force's A-10 attack plane, made by Fairchild Republic in Farmingdale. It has been the object of a seesaw battle between defense budget-cutters and members of the Long Island delegation seeking to preserve contracts and jobs at Fairchild. The delegation will also have under scrutiny other defense programs, particularly one involving the McDonnell Douglas F-18, that may affect competitors such as Grumman Aerospace in Bethpage. Grumman makes F-14 fighters and A-6 attack planes that perform some of the same missions as the F-18.

HEMPSTEAD WITH paint peeling from its twin smokestacks and rust spreading across its sheet-metal walls, the $145 million Hempstead Resource Recovery Plant stands idle beside the Meadowbrook Parkway at the very heart of Nassau County, a monument to a protracted dispute between the recycling plant's neighbors, its owners and town officials. That dispute, which began two and a half years ago, heated up again re cently when Hempstead's Presiding Supervisor, Thomas S. Gulotta, announced that the builder, Parsons & Whittemore Inc. of Manhattan, had demanded $12.5 million from the town to complete work on revisions designed to rid the plant's emissions of bad odors and any possible toxins. ''I didn't fall off my chair, but obviously I wasn't pleased,'' said Mr. Gulotta, describing his reaction. The town responded by saying it would sue Parsons & Whittemore and one of its subsidiaries, the Hempstead Resource Recovery Corporation, which runs the plant, for $34 million, charging failure to live up to their contract with the town.

The 1,500 members of the Supreme Soviet, Russia's rubber-stamp Parliament, snapped their hands into the air on cue last week for Yuri V. Andropov. But for now they were only endorsing his appointment to the 39-member Presidium, which directs the Government on orders from the Communist Party - not putting him in charge of it.

After four months of negotiations, France has formally agreed to supply enriched uranium for an American-built nuclear power plant near Bombay, spokesmen for the two Governments said today. The accord was announced at the start of President Francois Mitterrand's four-day state visit to India. Under the arrangement, India will use the nuclear fuel ''only for peaceful purposes.'' The arrangement with France was suggested when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the United States last summer as a way to end a dispute between Washington and New Delhi. Although the United States originally agreed to supply fuel for the Tarapur plant, American legislation bars nuclear fuel for any country that refuses to accept full international safeguards.