What was going on when I was born?

The Natomas Company was the most actively traded issue on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, following the surprise offer by the Diamond Shamrock Corporation Sunday to pay about $1.4 billion in cash and stock for the West Coast energy company. More than 2.4 million shares changed hands, and the price climbed $4. Some analysts argued that the price of Natomas stock would have gone even higher if professional traders felt confident that a deal could be negotiated between the two companies or that a new suitor might emerge to join in the bidding. Natomas ended the day at $22.50, just below Diamond Shamrock's offering price of $23 a share. Diamond Shamrock, in a two-part deal, is seeking up to 30.4 million shares, or 51 percent of the shares outstanding, at $23 each, or nearly $700 million. For the remaining 49 percent of Natomas's stock, Diamond Shamrock has offered to exchange O.92 share of its stock for each Natomas share. At Diamond Shamrock's close yesterday of $24.625 on the New York Stock Exchange, 0.92 share would be worth $22.66. Diamond Shamrock's shares fell 37 1/2 cents yesterday.

South Africa said today that its planes staged an early morning raid on installations and residences of the African National Congress in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. The official Mozambican press agency reported that 4 people were killed and 24 were wounded. The agency identified the dead as two women, a factory worker and a child. It did not say anything about casualties among South African exiles belonging to the underground movement, which accepted responsibility in a statement issued in Dar es Salaam for Friday's car-bomb explosion in Pretoria that provoked the raid on a Maputo suburb.

United States relations with Panama have been strained in recent months by increased American use of bases in Panama for a variety of military missions in Central America, according to American and Panamanian officials. The tensions, which officials from both countries describe as serious, center primarily on the use of Howard Air Base as a staging area for United States arms shipments to El Salvador and covert intelligence missions in Central America. Panama, which has joined other Latin nations in an effort to encourage a negotiated settlement to the region's problems, has repeatedly objected through private channels to the Reagan Administration's stationing of reconnaissance aircraft at Howard, American officials said. Sensitive About Ties Defense Department officials said Panamanian leaders had complained that the increased American presence in Panama threatened to undermine Panama's standing among its Latin neighbors and could spur anti-American sentiment in Panama. The officials said Panama, because of its long history of cooperation with the United States and its role as site of the American-built Panama Canal, was acutely sensitive about its relations with Washington.

Something is missing in George Larkin's life. For two weeks, commuting had bordered on the exhilarating, breezing to work from New Jersey across the upper deck of the George Washington Bridge in his snappy new European car, with the spiffy stereo system blaring Puccini or Michael Jackson. All that is lost now. There is a hole where his Blaupunkt used to be. When Mr. Larkin told his tale of woe at social gatherings, of having the expensive Blaupunkt radio-tape player ripped from his car, people reacted as if he were talking about crab grass or lower back pain or something.

THE rumbling from California's Coalinga earthquake May 2 has stopped but serious scientific reverberations continue. They now indicate to geologists that the state is in even worse seismological condition than had been thought. Not only has the pace of earthquake activity quickened but it can stem, as at Coalinga, from unknown faults capable of damaging whole towns. Thirty percent of Coalinga's homes were left uninhabitable. Such deeply ''hidden in the basement'' faults could be far more common in California than previously recognized, renewing questions on the safety of building nuclear power plants in the state, on where to spend limited funds available for predicting future earthquakes and on the accuracy of geological knowledge, even in some of the most closely studied regions.

''It's the great bridge. You should see it at night, the stone towers with all the lights on.

Soviet-American relations have reached one of the lowest points in a generation as the two nations trade recriminations over the Middle East, Central America, Afghanistan and missile deployments in Europe, according to many Government and academic specialists. The specialists regard the three years since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979 as a time of protracted tension, sharp and acrimonious charges, diplomatic stalemate and mutual suspicion. Soviet visitors as well as American officials speak warily of the prospects for ''doing business'' with the other side. President Reagan suggested last week that a meeting with Yuri V. Andropov could take place next year, and White House aides say that by sharply stepping up military spending and by speaking out forcefully against Moscow, Mr. Reagan has demonstrated resolve, bolstered American military strength and set the stage for what one official called ''a new season'' of more productive bargaining with Moscow. Talks on Grain Sales to Resume Senior Administration officials take comfort in the fact that the two sides have agreed to start long-term negotiations on grain sales. They also forecast more active probing in the Geneva negotiations on European nuclear weapons and strategic arms as a result of adjustments in American positions.

The care of tuberculosis depends more on what the patient has in his head than what he has in his chest. - Sir William Osler (1849-1919), the father of modern medicine. NEARLY a century after some leading physicians first recognized the powerful role of the mind in health and healing, scientists have begun to decipher exactly how stress and other emotional states can influence the onset and course of disease. Aided by new biochemical techniques and a vastly expanded understanding of immunology and neurochemistry, their studies show that emotions, acting through the brain, can affect nervous system function, hormone levels and immunological responses, thereby changing a person's susceptibility to a host of organic ills. Depending on the circumstances, animal and human studies have revealed that emotional reactions can suppress or stimulate diseasefighting whiteblood cells and trigger the release of adrenal gland hormones and neurotransmitters, including endorphins, that in turn affect dozens of body processes.

It's been a long time coming, but the Middle West, where the industrial heartland meets the nation's bread basket, is at last sprouting a promising economic recovery. Housing starts in the five Great Lakes states - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin - have rebounded even more strongly than they have nationally. Production of autos and trucks in places like Racine, Wis., and Belvidere, Ill., has risen substantially, generating orders at steel mills and parts makers - and putting money in workers' pockets. Retail sales, aided by heavy buying of appliances, are strengthening. And higher farm prices, benefiting from new Federal support programs, are at last relieving the outright depression in agriculture.

The chairman of the City Council's Finance Committee proposed yesterday that the pay of rookie police officers be cut by 25 percent during the five months they are trained at the Police Academy. The Councilman, Edward L. Sadowsky said the move could save the city at least $7.4 million in fiscal 1984, which begins July 1. He said this would permit the hiring of 300 additional police officers.

A former Deputy Attorney General in charge of environmental cases in New Jersey was indicted today on charges he and others illegally dumped millions of gallons of untreated hazardous waste into New Jersey waters. Six men and two companies were named in the 50-count indictment issued by a state grand jury. They were accused of involvement in a scheme that included the defrauding of major corporations, the corruption of public officials and the dumping of 13 million gallons of untreated hazardous waste into the Elizabeth sewer system betwen April 1978 and April 1982. The indictment charges that 13 companies that generated waste, including Nestle and Coca-Cola, were defrauded of $1.6 million in disposal charges.

The Supreme Court today upheld the Federal Government's preferential tax treatment of organizations that lobby for veterans. The Court ruled unanimously that Congress did not violate the Constitution by giving veterans' groups a privilege that it did not give to other nonprofit, charitable organizations. Under the Internal Revenue Code, veterans' groups that engage in lobbying retain their eligibility to receive tax-deductible contributions, while all other nonprofit groups forfeit this tax benefit if they engage in ''substantial'' lobbying. The decision, written by Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, overturned a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals here. That court ruled last year that the preferential treatment of veterans' groups violated the constitutional right of other nonprofit groups to equal protection of the law.