What was going on when I was born?

After nine weeks of a strike by 550 Legal Aid Society lawyers, New York City's court officials and district attorneys say that the courts have managed to take up much of the slack with private lawyers but that postponements have begun to worsen the backlogs of criminal cases. Cases have been put off whenever possible, and as a result one administrative judge said that when the strike ends, it could be four to six months before the backlogs can be dealt with. The new backlogs are adding to an existing problem of limited trial capacity at a time of record criminal indictments. If the strike does not end by Jan. 1, these officials say, the trouble for the courts could become more serious. A Limit to 'Making Do' ''We just can't continue to limp along as we've been doing,'' said Joseph B. Williams, the administrative judge in charge of all criminal proceedings in the city. ''We've been making do, but there is just so much we can take before grinding to a halt.''

Governor-elect Mario M. Cuomo said yesterday that a state law governing the nomination of judges to the State Court of Appeals was inconsistent with the State Constitution. He asked a nominating panel to disregard the law and recommend additional candidates for a court vacancy. The law requires that a Governor be given three to five wellqualified candidates. Last week the panel, the Commission on Judicial Nomination, sent Mr. Cuomo the names of four candidates to fill the seat of Judge Domenick L. Gabrielli, who is retiring.

Christmas sales in the White Plains retail centers continued strong yesterday, a day after many merchants did their best business of the year. Following a slow start, holiday sales reversed direction a week ago when the weather cooled. The remaining five days of the shopping season - together with next Sunday, when most stores will join in the first unified Sunday opening immediately after Christmas that anyone remembers - are expected to answer questions that have been gnawing at some merchants: Are there simply too many stores, including outposts of New York's biggest retailers, for this city of some 50,000? Or is White Plains, in recent years the home for an increaing number of corporations, actually one of the fastest growing retail sites in the East? The catalyst for the questions is the Galleria, an urban shopping center on Main Street anchored by Abraham & Straus and J.C. Penney's first store in Westchester County. It also includes 150 small stores. Sales at the Galleria have been growing at a 20 percent annual rate since it opened in August 1980.

Four bombs exploded today and Saturday at South Africa's only nuclear power station, which is under construction on the rocky Atlantic coast just north of Cape Town. The underground African National Congress, in a statement issued in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, said it was responsible for the attack on the station, which was not in operation. No one was injured in the bombings, the police said. The security police said tonight that the damage to the Koeberg power station was still being assessed, but that there was no danger from radioactivity to the population of Cape Town or workers at the site.

After a run-up that lasted nearly two years, the value of the dollar on foreign exchange markets has begun to slide. While the dollar is expected to remain strong, the decline is likely to continue well into 1983, according to economists, traders and foreign exchange experts. Since early November, the dollar has dropped by more than 12 percent against the Japanese yen, 6 percent against the West German mark and 7 percent against the Swiss franc. Nevertheless, the dollar is still overvalued, analysts say. A year ago, for example, the dollar was trading 11 percent lower against the yen and 8 percent lower against the mark than at Friday's close on New York foreign exchange markets.

In a makeshift Christmas tree lot along the West Side Highway, Peter Dolle and his three sons - after some debate over greenness and fullness - settled on a tree. ''This is the last chance,'' said Mr. Dolle, who was on his second day of Christmas tree hunting yesterday. ''I'll give the guy 10 bucks for this tree. That's it. If we don't get it for 10, we're going home.''

The nation's bankruptcy system will apparently slip into legal paralysis before year's end unless the Supreme Court gives Congress another extension of its Dec. 24 deadline for restructuring the bankruptcy courts. Legislation to cure the constitutional defects that the court found in a June 28 ruling striking down the powers of bankruptcy judges appears all but dead as Congress staggers toward adjournment. And the Justice Department says that if the matter goes over to the new Congress meeting in January, legislation may be months away. There was still talk today of bringing various proposals to the floor of Congress, but neither the House nor the Senate appears likely to pass a bill before going home, and any bill passed by one house would run into heavy opposition in the other.

International Israel removed a major obstacle that has prevented discussions with Lebanon on the withdrawal of Israeli forces by forgoing its stipulation that meetings be held in Jerusalem. Israeli officials said they hoped the talks could begin in the next few days. Israel said its concession had been made after Lebanon agreed to a negotiating framework that was reported to include talks on normalization of Israeli-Lebanese trade and tourism relations. (Page A1, Column 2.) Lebanon is ready to start talks with Israel immediately, the Government said after Israel announced that it would no longer insist that the talks be held in part in Jerusalem. Foreign Minister Elie Salem said that the United States must be a partner in the discussions. (A12:3-5.)

Dec. 9 - Ray Perkins is told by the University of Alabama that Coach Bear Bryant would not return next season.

There is plenty of superficial evidence that the venerable Lloyd's of London insurance exchange is flourishing. The trading floor, known simply as The Room, is crowded with brokers. The list of people wishing to invest in the Lloyd's syndicates, with which insurance brokers place their clients' risks, has grown to 1,900, almost 50 percent more than a year ago. A new Lloyd's building designed by Richard Rogers, architect of the Pompidou Center in Paris, is rising on Lime Street. But the outward vitality of the three-century-old institution masks the extent of the damage that has recently been done to Lloyd's by the wave of scandals involving some of its best-known participants. The scandals involve accusations of the misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars in premiums and the possibility that some insurance risks had been resold to shadowy offshore firms with insufficient capital to cover them. Underwriters' Exposure The questionable deals could result in high claims against underwriters who have pledged everything down to their cufflinks to cover risks that their syndicates have insured.

Ministers of the 13 OPEC countries adjourned today the first round of formal talks that have so far failed to yield an effective agreement on how much oil each member should produce. The meetings resume Monday. Marc S.N. Nguema of Gabon, the Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, told reporters at the conclusion of today's meeting that ''most ministers are amenable to the idea that we must have a ceiling.'' Production Limit Sought Fixing a maximum production goal and allocating individual national ceilings have become the foremost goals of the conference, after the ministers agreed during informal talks Friday and Saturday to maintain OPEC's current oil price of $34 for a barrel of Arabia Light crude. There are 42 gallons in a barrel.

For the last two months, Palestine Liberation Organization officials say, Yasir Arafat has been virtually ignoring P.L.O. hard-liners and pursuing a diplomatic strategy aimed at bringing his guerrilla organization into a position to take part in President Reagan's Middle East peace initiative. ''Arafat is off on his own,'' said a senior official of the Palestine National Council, the P.L.O.'s parliament in exile. ''If he comes up with something, he will try to sell it to the rest of the leadership. If not, you will hear him singing a very different song very soon.''