What was going on when I was born?

-------------------------------------------------------------------- This biographical excerpt is adapted from ''Horowitz,'' to be published next month by William Morrow and Company. During his middle teens, Vladimir, known by the Russian diminutive Volodya, became intrigued with the idea of being a composer-pianist, in the tradition of Liszt and Rachmaninoff. He had accumulated a modest portfolio of original works, which began with his opera transcriptions and extended to ballades and sonatas for piano, songs, and sonatas for violin and cello. But despite his interest and talent for composition, Volodya did not apply himself in harmony and counterpoint classes. Later he admitted that his negligence in academic discipline was one liability in his development. More obstructive to his career as a composer, however, was the devestating effect of the Russian Revolution on him and his family. ''In 24 hours my family lost everything,'' he recalled. ''With my own eyes I saw them throw our piano through the window, into the street! The Communist motto was 'Steal what was stolen,' so they stole everything! All the clothes in the closets were taken. Books, my music, furniture, everything.''

DO you have a good appetite? How are your table manners? Do you believe in the second coming of Christ? Are you a good mixer? How's your sex life? These and similar questions are being asked all over the Island of prospective bank tellers, department store clerks, dishwashers or people seeking just about any other position. The inquiries are of questionable relevance, and some may even be illegal. A job seeker can complain about them to the proper agencies. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, however, many people are so uninformed, intimidated or anxious to obtain work that they allow potential employers to make illegal, discriminatory or expansive investigations into their lives.

In intermittent rain and on a golf course soaked by recent storms, Tom Kite shot a record 62 today and took a two-stroke lead over three other players in the third round of the 42d Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. ''I got a whole year's worth of breaks,'' Kite said of his round. ''I made all the putts and even one chip-in I had no right, realistically, to expect. ''I've played nine rounds before today, and it's been frustrating, because I've been playing well. But all the things that didn't happen did happen today. I had so much fun I'd like to have stretched it out to eight or nine hours.''

IS Stamford Darien's problem? The question is at the heart of a dispute involving both towns and the advisory planning unit for lower Fairfield County. At issue is the character of Darien as a community almost entirely composed of single-family homes on fairly spacious lots - homes that are worth an average of $165,791, according to the 1980 census. Some resolution may come tomorrow night, when the planning agency is to vote on a proposed regional plan of development that includes the disputed proposals for Darien. The South Western Regional Planning Agency and Stamford officials believe Darien must loosen its zoning to allow for apartments and condominiums; the goal is one part of a proposed regional solution to the severe housing shortage wrought by the development of Stamford as a corporate center. And there, Darien officials maintain, is the rub. They contend that Stamford made the decision to develop itself - a decision that included bulldozing much downtown housing stock to clear room for the corporate offices - and that Stamford must find its own solutions.

YESTERDAY, Steve Kemp got married. Today, he shaves off his beard. T omorrow? He can start thinking about the next milestone in his life:M aking his debut with the Yankees as a million-dollar-a-year free a gent and, some people suspect, as the designated replacement for R eggie Jackson. ''What I really want,'' he says, ''is some stability in my life. I've had six hectic years in the big leagues. I went to salary arbitration twice, and won. I was traded, I became a free agent, I was called a troublemaker. ''But I'm not a troublemaker. Now, I want people to learn who Steve Kemp is. That's why I signed.'' Stability with the Yankees? In the year Billy Martin returns as manager of a team that finished fifth, how can anybody find stability?

As decades go, the 1960's may not have been the profoundest in recent art history, but it was certainly one of the liveliest. It started out with a bang: the self-destruction of Jean Tinguely's suicide machine at the Museum of Modern Art (1960); and it ended noisily, too, with demonstrations echoing the spirit of rebellion in the larger world by artists fired up over the Vietnam war and the small representation of women and black artists in museums. It had a swarm of movements: Happenings, Pop, Color Field, Op, Minimal, Psychedelic, Kinetic, Funk, Conceptual, and numerous ways of promoting them, from the savvy exhibitions initiated in 1962 by the late Alan Solomon at the Jewish Museum to the ambitious performances staged by artists involved with the special-effects-loving group known as Experiments in Art and Technology. Seen from where we are now, perhaps through a screen of glamorizing nostalgia, the 60's also seemed to have a special zeitgeist: an optimistic sense of possibility carried over from the glory days of Abstract Expressionism; a belief in the pursuit of art and its power to affect where the world was going. And there was something else that seems missing in today's expanded scene - a feeling of camaraderie, the notion of a common endeavor. As one artist put it wistfully the other day, ''The 60's was a community; the 80's is just a market.''

BLUNK NO. 1 gas well sits forlornly in a snowy field in the outskirts of Hardtner, a small town some 100 miles southwest of here. The well's gray painted valves, meter shed and other equipment are idle and show the rusty signs of deferred maintanance. Although it's the middle of winter, Blunk hasn't produced any of its dirt-cheap gas since Jan. 17. ''It makes my job a lot easier,'' said Curtis Clark, a pumper who tends 100 wells in south central Kansas and nearby Oklahoma. He doesn't have to bother checking wells that are out of production, which now number 35. ''But it sure makes things hard on the cash flows of the companies'' that own the wells, he said. Blunk No. 1's gas goes begging these days - even though the Northwest Central Pipeline Corporation to which it is hooked up could buy Blunk gas for just 59 cents per 1,000 cubic feet, less than onequarter the average well-head price in the nation.

After years of mutual alienation and distrust, evangelical Christians have been meeting with Jewish leaders in New York and elsewhere to offer support for Israel and to forge a new relationship with Jewish groups. Jewish leaders are talking of a surge of support from a wide range of conservative Christians, including fundamentalists. Jewish leaders who want to build ties with evangelicals also point to pro-Israel editorials in evangelical magazines and to theological pronouncements by Christian preachers eschewing proselytizing among Jews. There have been rallies and newspaper advertisements supporting Israel, participation of evangelicals in synagogue services and the creation of pro-Israeli organizations among Christians. But while many Jewish leaders have openly welcomed the evangelicals' eagerness to build ties, others say they are uneasy. They say they harbor deep doubts about the wisdom of alliances with conservative Christian groups that, they feel, want ultimately to convert the Jews and, on many political issues, often hold profoundly different, more conservative points of view.

A Florida developer who had a frustrating time shopping for a computer system in New York not long ago has come up with a way to make such a search easier in the future. Barry Segall of the Atlantic Coast Development Corporation is planning to convert a six-story warehouse near the new Convention Center into a trade-show building where computer manufacturers can set up permanent displays of their wares.

AGROUP of commuters from the county is suing Conrail for damages, but it will be Conrail's successor who pays if they win. According to Walter E. Zullig Jr., the lawyer for the Metro-North Commuter Railroad, which took over the lines' operation on Jan. 1, Metro North, not Conrail, would have to pay if damages are awarded. Metro North will also be required, under its contracts with Conrail, to pay the costs of the litigation. Because of this, the lawyer said in an interview, Metro North, a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, ''has taken over the defense of all litigation Conrail had that dealt with the commuter service.'' As a result, Mr. Zullig said, Conrail's lawyer in the suits has been working closely with his office in preparing a defense. Mr. Zullig said that the costs of Conrail's defense would be charged to operating expenses of the railroad. ''That's the way all authorities do it,'' he said. ''Any cost incurred in operating the commuter service is a proper charge to the commuter service. That's under Interstate Commerce Commission rules. The theory is that the railroad would not have incurred the cost if it had not operated the commuter service. Therefore it's chargeable to the commuter service.''

Hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians streamed back to their destitute country last week after Nigeria, suddenly gone from oil boom to bust, ordered unauthorized aliens out. Deprived of low-wage jobs they had held without residence permits or working papers, the refugees, mostly young men, fled in fear of vigilantes who threatened to steal their few belongings or kill them. Said a Ghanaian priest as they poured across the frontier, ''They were going for milk and honey and they are coming back weeping tears.''

A pair of third-period goals, the second into an untended net, enabled the Minnesota North Stars to beat the Islanders, 4-2, tonight and send them to their first defeat in six games. ''Mental mistakes'' was the reason Coach Al Arbour gave for the defeat as the Islanders returned to Nassau Coliseum after a successful trip. However, he singled out Billy Smith for praise for his work in goal. Smith would have been livid except for the angry red creases left by his goalie mask on the unbearded portion of his face. ''It was a farce,'' he said as he launched into a diatribe against the officiating.