What was going on when I was born?

ON the night of Dec. 15, after residents of Windham and Willimantic voted to merge their two governments, bottles of champagne were uncorked as the forces that had worked for consolidation celebrated the end of a long battle. But as it turned out, Dec. 15 was only the midpoint. The fight to eliminate the two governments so far has resulted only in changing the forms of the two governments. Democrats and Republicans have witnessed infighting in the last six months as they moved toward consolidation. And the efforts to pass a budget for the new government have been unsuccessful so far. On Friday, the new government is supposed to be in place, functioning smoothly. But some of the people who fought hard for consolidation say the smooth part may be a decade off.

Jay Howell could not bear to watch. When Rich Gossage relieved him in the eighth inning today, he went directly into the clubhouse and took a shower even though his first victory of the season was on the line. However, by the time the game reached the ninth inning, Howell forced himself to watch the final outs on television and saw the Yankees complete a 4-1 victory over Boston. A satisfied Howell had an elusive first victory and the Yankees had their 900th career victory over the Red Sox. This marked the first time one American League team had beaten another 900 times.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz arrived in the Philippines on the first stop of a four-nation Asian trip today and reaffirmed United States support for President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Mr. Shultz, speaking in a luncheon toast, called the relationship between the United States and the Philippines ''very special.'' In his toast, Mr. Shultz praised Mr. Marcos for his management of the Government, particularly the imposition on Friday of austerity measures to help the Philippines cope with a serious balance-ofpayments shortfall. The Philippine Government announced it was devaluing the peso by 7 percent. The nation's payments deficit reached $1.14 billion last year and totaled $343 million in the first quarter of 1983.

A senior Defense Department official says that shoddy work by military contractors is adding even more to the cost of military equipment and weapons than an estimate of excesses cited earlier this month. The officer, Rear Adm. Frank C. Collins Jr., said in an interview that the previous estimate of 10 to 30 percent added costs was ''conservative.'' That estimate had been made by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Thayer.

WASHINGTON IF the landmark Supreme Court decision overturning the so-called legislative veto had come 15 years ago, the reaction probably would have been mild and predictable. Liberals would have applauded the Court for safeguarding the powers of the Presidency and conservatives would have regretfully observed a little more erosion of the authority of Congress. As it was, last week's 7-to-2 ruling created an uproar, leaving liberals and conservatives divided and uncertain about which branch would ultimately benefit from the nullification of the Congressional practice of overriding Presidential acts. That is because in recent years Congress had built a constitutionally dubious superstructure that, while helping balance the powers in areas where balance was deemed necessary, encouraged bad government practices in others. Like a tornado dropping out of a Kansas sky, the Court demolished the structure, leaving more than 200 laws in both foreign and domestic affairs in doubt. The White House and Congress must now find new ways of dealing with one another.

The convoluted redistricting map devised by New Jersey Democrats didn't need a Hermann Rorschach to figure out its meaning. One Congressional district nipped corners of seven densely populated northern counties. Another cut a thin sliver through four counties, almost circling back on itself. A third, dubbed the ''flying duck,'' looped in a meandering arc of more than 100 miles. All to the advantage of the Democrats.

The Mets kept the opposition on the run yesterday, much to the liking of the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies backed the pitching debut of Kevin Gross with only six hits but they also had six stolen bases, matching the National League high this season, and ran up a 4-2 victory over the Mets before 24,551 fans at Shea Stadium. ''Look,'' said Frank Howard, the Mets' manager, ''I can't blame our catchers for the stolen bases we've given up. I'd say 90 percent of stolen bases come off pitchers. And that's something we keep working and working at.''

Pope John Paul II's eight-day visit to Poland has added fuel to a muted but persistent debate in the Vatican over his involvement in political events in his homeland. The debate, on the degree and nature of the Pope's concentration on Polish politics, is going on among the priests, bishops and cardinals who make up the administration of the Roman Catholic Church. It began with murmurings after his first pilgrimage to Poland, in 1979. The debate grew the next year with the birth of the Solidarity movement and became a primary subject of discussion within the Curia with the crisis that began with the declaration of martial law in December 1981.

ALBANY GOVERNOR CUOMO'S policy on nuclear power plants has, by all accounts, gone through several phases during his first six months in office. The nuclear plant issue has arisen on several fronts, but nowhere is the development of Mr. Cuomo's policy laid out more clearly than in his public statements on the Long Island Lighting Company's nearly finished nuclear power generating plant at Shoreham. Mr. Cuomo has used the word ''evolution'' to describe the course of his policy. Others prefer the word ''reversal.'' Either way, they are talking about one of the most interesting and important issues the new Governor has had to come to grips with - and the final results will have both profound effects on Long Island and provide an interesting glimpse into the decision-making process of the Cuomo administration.

MODERN TIMES The World From the Twenties to the Eighties. By Paul Johnson. 817 pp. New York: Harper & Row. $27.95. A BOLD and capacious mind is required for what Paul Johnson has undertaken in this book: a history of the world during the last 60 years, taking in all continents and major countries. Fortunately, the author possesses in abundance the qualities necessary to the enterprise. His ''History of Christianity'' (1976) revealed him to be an able practitioner of the historian's craft, and his ''Enemies of Society'' (1977) displayed the mind of a well-informed and unyielding social critic. ''Modern Times'' unites historical and critical consciousness. It is far from being a simple chronicle, though a vast wealth of events and personages and historical changes fill it; Mr. Johnson is most interested throughout in drawing conclusions, many of them provocative, from his materials. He stands in the train of those historians of the last two centuries for whom historical writing seemed profitless unless it yielded up revelations and judgments pertinent to the world around us. It should be noted that he served 15 years on the British magazine, The New Statesman, six of them as editor, which could only have fortified his historical interest in the modern world.

NEARLY every night, Arthur B. Powers, the former State Transportation Commissioner, leaves his insurance job in Berlin and goes to the Morgan Street Courthouse in Hartford, where he cleans and scrubs walls, washes windows, shellacs furniture and does any other maintenance work that might be needed. ''I thought I had humility before I got into this thing,'' Mr. Powers said. He is working off a sentence of 1,270 hours of community service. Last April, Mr. Powers pleaded guilty to two counts of hindering prosecution in a case related to a corruption investigation in the Transportation Department. ''It's better than being in jail, but it's no slap on the wrist,'' said Mr. Powers of his sentence, which also includes work at New Britain General Hospital and Friends of the Street, a Hartford program for the homeless and alcoholics.

Are there new ideas for movies any more? This summer, there hardly seem to be. Audiences that once enjoyed the luxury of deciding what they cared to see can now choose chiefly what to see more of. What's worse, few of the current sequels, remakes and rehashes appear to have arisen out of any genuine need for their characters to be resurrected, or their stories to be retold. There's simply money to be made by providing more of the same: The motives for making a sequel are, in most cases, quite transparent - capitalize on the success of the familiar hit, instead of risking something uncertain and new. So the goose that lays golden eggs has been persuaded to work overtime.