What was going on when I was born?

In an article on the Crisfield restaurant that appeared yesterday on the Washington Talk page, a remark about Patricia Harris, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services, was incorrectly attributed. The observation was made by Toni Farello, a waitress at the restaurant.

The Reagan Administration announced today that it planned to sell the nation's four weather satellites and the Government's lone satellite for surveying land resources to private industry. The plan calls for industry to operate the satellites and three ground control stations but sell the data back to the Government for further distribution and perhaps to commercial users as well. The sale would require Congressional approval. Several lawmakers expressed concern today but withheld judgment pending more details.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a compromise resolution today calling for a ''mutual and verifiable freeze and reductions in nuclear weapons'' by the United States and the Soviet Union. The compromise, designed to attract maximum support in both the House and Senate, was approved by a vote of 27 to 9 as supporters and opponents held rain-drenched demonstrations outside the Capitol. Earlier, the demonstrators clogged the corridors, searching out offices of committee members and subjecting them to intense lobbying. The resolution originally called for a nuclear freeze to be ''followed by'' reductions in nuclear weapons. But the committee accepted a proposal by Representative Ed Zschau, a freshman Republican from California, that urged concurrent action on both the freeze and nuclear arms reductions.

WHAT do you do if not one, not two, but four of the finest chefs in France show up at your door one morning, laden with fresh ingredients and eager to try some of their specialties in your kitchen? I recently had that pleasure, when Michel Rostang, Paul Genin, Jean-Paul Lacombe and Michel Chabran - whose restaurants rate six Michelin stars among them - were my guests for a day of extraordinary cooking. The array of dishes they turned out was, as one might expect, impressive: a lobster with Sauternes sauce; a quick saute of bay scallops with tomatoes and olive oil; an appetizer of baked oysters with watercress. Each was nothing short of exemplary. But there was another dish, boneless chicken legs and thighs stuffed with morels and chicken livers and steamed, that was simply dazzling. Granted, it requires time and several steps, but it is well within the scope of any fairly experienced cook who cherishes his or her palate and those of a few fortunate guests.

The Southern Industrial Banking Corporation announced yesterday that it was filing for protection under the bankruptcy laws. The Southern Industrial, a finance company, is owned by C.H. Butcher Jr., brother of Jake Butcher, whose United American Bank of Knoxville failed last month because of problem loans. That failure added to the troubles at Southern Industrial. The bankruptcy announcment followed demands by Tennessee authorities that Southern Industrial stop taking money from the public without fully disclosing its business practices and financial condition.

Markets Stock prices fell sharply as interest rates rose and investors cashed in on recent profits. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 21.96 points, to 1,119.78; in the previous five sessions, it had climbed 29 points, setting five consecutive highs. (Page D1.) The British pound fell to a record low against the dollar. In New York, dealers quoted the pound at $1.495, a decline of 1.73 cents from Monday's close. The pound, valued at $4.80 at the end of World War II, has most recently been under pressure because of uncertainty over how much Britain can earn from its oil exports. (D13.)

Living in the Hampton closest to the rest of Long Island, Southampton residents have long worried that parts of their town looked a little too much like nearby suburban Brookhaven and not enough like resort-filled East Hampton. ''The last thing any of us wanted was to be like Brookhaven,'' said Patricia Neumann, a Southampton Town Councilwoman. ''This has to be a different sort of place than Brookhaven. What we're doing now is putting up the gate.''

International More military aid for El Salvador than previously planned is being considered by the Reagan Administration. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger told Congressional leaders that the Administration was weighing an emergency aid package this year totaling $110 million, nearly double the $60 million that had been set. (Page A1, Columns 1-2.) Bad loans to Latin America totaling $240 million have been written off by the Export-Import Bank and the losses may rise to more than $500 million by September, according to William H. Draper 3d, chairman of the bank, which is the Federal agency that finances American exports. Because of these and other unprofitable transactions, he said, the bank expects to lose a total of $700 million in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. (A1:1.)

Some workers suspected from William Kilkenny's first words - ''The Hyster Company wishes sincerely to find a way to stay and expand in Scotland'' - that they were about to receive an ultimatum from the chairman of the forklift manufacturer, which is based in Portland, Ore. The suspicion was quickly confirmed. In return for wage cuts and reductions in fringe benefits that would slice 13 percent off Hyster's labor costs in this small Ayrshire city southwest of Glasgow, it was prepared to take advantage of an estimated $20 million in Government subsidies and invest $60 million in a five-year modernization and expansion program that might add 1,000 jobs. No agreement, and the 500 employees would soon be swelling the unemployment roles in a region where one out of three men is already jobless, the highest rate in Scotland. Employees had 36 hours to decide on the proposal, which was made Feb. 14.

Mayor Koch, saying he believed he had a solution to some of the country's ''critical problems,'' proposed yesterday that Americans be compelled to spend a year performing national service when they reach 18 years of age. Under the Mayor's plan, the 18-year-olds - both men and women - could choose between military and civilian service. They would acquire education and job skills and a ''spirit of altruism,'' while the nation would have a ready pool of people able to meet its ''need for public service,'' Mr. Koch said. The Mayor's proposal was similar to one made earlier in the week by Franklin A. Thomas, president of the Ford Foundation. In a speech Monday in Detroit, Mr. Thomas urged the creation of a national service program for young adults, saying such a program could have ''historic importance to America's youth and to America's future.''

The Commerce Department today tentatively rejected demands for protection by the domestic lumber industry against imports of softwood lumber from Canada in an action that defuses a potentially explosive trade dispute with Ottawa. The department found in a preliminary ruling that the Canadians were not significantly subsidizing nearly $2 billion a year of lumber shipments to the United States. What subsidies there were, it said, were minimal, not requiring the imposition of penalties.

There were more visits to Central Park last year than at any other time in the park's history, according to estimates in a new study crammed with information about the changing uses of the 126-year-old park. ''This gives us a portrayal of the park in living color, better than anything we've had before,'' said Parks Commissioner Gordon J. Davis. The study, done during the summer and fall of 1982, is part of the Parks Department's 10-year, $100 million plan to renovate Central Park. The record number of visits in 1982 - an estimated 14.2 million - came despite declines in the population of the neighborhoods adjacent to the park, and in the city as a whole. Between the 1970 and 1980 censuses, there was an 11 percent decline in the adjacent neighborhoods, and a 10 percent decline in the city as a whole.