What was going on when I was born?

Late last month, more than 800 representatives from public television's hierarchy gathered in a hotel ballroom outside Washington, D.C., to thank the U.S. Congress for its financial support. The occasion was a festive one attended by nearly 100 Congressmen who heard testimonials to the virtues of public television's programs from an eclectic group including LeVar Burton, star of ''Roots,'' Roone Arledge, president of ABC News and Sports, and Roberta Peters of the Metropolitan Opera. Only a year ago, the toast of the town was facing impoverishment and obsolescence. Public television suffered financial cutbacks from Federal and state governments, corporations and foundations. Even worse, fancy new cultural cable services threatened to supplant public stations entirely by offering high-toned programming to paying customers. ''We were fighting not only the funding cuts but the perception that we were on our way out,'' says Lawrence K. Grossman, president of the Public Broadcasting Service.

Florida has begun to crack down hard on racketeers from New York who, according to Federal and state prosecutors, are invading the garbage collection and disposal industry here on the state's west coast. On Tuesday, the Florida Attorney General, Jim Smith, and the Pinellas County State Attorney, James T. Russell, jointly filed a civil antitrust suit against 20 individuals and 12 west Florida refuse hauling companies. At a news conference, the officials described the defendants as practitioners of ''mob-style control'' of the trash hauling industry in this booming retirement area. Threats and Beatings Cited In January, the United States Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in the Tampa area is to begin trying a major criminal racketeering case against 11 people, including five of those named in the state's civil antitrust suit. The five, identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as Mafia members or associates from New York, are accused of conspiring to seize control of garbage disposal here by ''getting tough.''

When starting on a risky venture, it's nice to have a friend along. The New York City Opera begins its new, daring and controversial summer format on Thursday (provided contract disputes between management and orchestra musicians are resolved by then) and to make it work, the company is relying on the best friend a modern opera house ever had -Giacomo Puccini. Puccini's operas - six of them -will anchor this new summer season. ''Turandot,'' with Franco Alfano's posthumous ending added in its entirety, opens this Puccini Festival on Thursday. And Puccini on stage makes up only part of the proceedings. There will be Puccini to talk about (nine lecture/recitals) and Puccini to look at (a photographic exhibit called ''The Italy of Puccini''). There will even be Puccini to eat and drink by. The City Opera is opening its new Cafe Puccini for the event, where patrons can drink wine and dine lightly at candlelit tables on the New York State Theater's outdoor terrace.

Although Suffolk County has been celebrating its Tercentenary in spurts since the start of 1983, the festivities get into high gear tonight at Westhampton Beach when the Long Island Philharmonic performs the world premiere of ''Honor Song,'' an overture by David Amram. Commissioned to mark the occasion, the piece, Mr. Amram said, draws on Indian and other ethnic musical strains to capture the spirit of one of New York's oldest political entities. The orchestra, led by Christopher Keene, will also play Stravinsky's ''Firebird Suite'' and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. A fireworks display by the Grucci family caps the evening. The free concert, which will be repeated at 8:30 P.M. Monday at Heckscher Park in Huntington, is at 8 P.M. at the Suffolk County Airport, but get there early with your own seating. ROUSING FOURTH Hold the hot dogs and take a detour around the hometown parade; there's more than one way to mark Independence Day. For example, the Nassau County Center for the Fine Arts in Roslyn Harbor is holding an old-fashioned American Fourth of July Celebration, inviting folks to try their luck in a ''kite-making and kite-flying festival'' and enjoy the music provided by the Dixie Ramblers, the Country Squires and the All Americans. The free events are from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. at the center, off Northern Boulevard.

SOME time around the beginning of next year, if Northeast Utilities has its way, 900,000 electric customers around the state will start paying higher bills to cover the cost of the Millstone 3 nuclear reactor in Waterford. The rate increase, if it comes, will be historic. Increases come every year, sometimes bigger than the one that Northeast is now asking. But this increase would be a sharp break with traditional rate-making, because it would include money for a plant more than two years from completion. In a letter to the State Department of Public Utility Control last month, Northeast said that it would call for a ''phase-in'' of the burden of paying for the reactor, which at the current estimate of $3.54 billion is the state's largest construction project.

WASHINGTON WITH the Justice Department investigation of how President Reagan's campaign aides obtained President Carter's research material before their 1980 debate, two of the capital's hoariest questions gained new life last week. First there is the matter of whether ''dirty tricks'' are standard practice in Presidential campaigns. Second and of greater importance to the Reagan White House is the question of how swiftly and brutally a President should act to separate himself from subordinates who get into trouble. Already, Republicans are divided on the second issue. On one side are the senior White House officials who initially believed that the briefing-book story would go away in a few days. On the other side are members of Congress and Republican political professionals who remember the protracted agony of the Watergate scandal and believe that Mr. Reagan was badly served by the go-slow advice of his senior aides.

More than a few of the prospective buyers who have been in to look over Skytrack, a new condominium building at 122-134 Boerum Place in Brooklyn, have been as curious about its roof as the size, layouts and features of its 56 apartments.

There were two positive notes for the Yankees in their 10-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox last night: Dave Winfield hit his first home run in 18 games and drove in runs for the first time in 11 games, and Dale Murray pitched four scoreless innings of relief. Now for the negative notes, of which there were many: Matt Keough, who was supposed to become Billy Martin's prize reclamation project, was knocked out by the Red Sox in the fourth inning for the second time in a week. George Frazier, a usually reliable relief pitcher, suffered his second poor effort in his last three appearances. Jim Rice, a hitting terror who is having his most devastating season in the last four, swatted a pair of two-run home runs, giving him a league-leading 21 homers for the season, including 5 in the last three games, and a league-leading 57 runs batted in.

ROME POPE John Paul II and the Primate of Poland, Jozef Cardinal Glemp, were closeted in the Vatican again this weekend as they have been many times in the 18 months since Solidarity, the movement that owes so much to the Roman Catholic Church, was put under ban. Once again, decisions that may shape Poland's future were being made far from Warsaw - in Rome as in Moscow, where the Warsaw Pact countries met last week, and in Washington. President Reagan said the United States would be willing to ''turn back'' from some of the economic sanctions that the West has imposed if Poland acted on the Pope's call for free trade unions. In the Primate's previous visits, it was he who reported to the Pope on continuing negotiations with the martial-law regime of Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski; and it was the Pope, Vatican bureaucrats believe, who listened, questioned him closely and advised. But this time, the roles were presumed to be somewhat reversed. The Pope, just returned from his eight-day journey, had had the most immediate contact with the regime - four hours of private talks with General Jaruzelski, about which not a word has been made public.

The Reagan Administration, concerned about Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa, has quietly doubled military aid to key countries in the region. Assistant Secretary of State Chester A. Crocker, head of the Bureau of African Affairs and the key American policy maker for the region, said military aid now represents about 20 percent of overall American aid to sub-Saharan African countries. The bulk of American aid, he said in an interview this week, is designed to alleviate the critical balance-of-payments deficits in most African countries, many of which are facing their worst economic crisis in 40 years. The crisis was fostered by drought, declining food production, rising birth rates and paltry foreign exchange earnings from such traditional export products as cocoa and rubber, the prices of which are depressed on the world market.

UNTIL recently, Ann Taylor, the wife of a home improvement contractor on this city's Southwest Side, was being ''eaten up'' by gas and repair bills on her old 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood. But now, with her husband's business picking up, she has plunked down $20,000 for a new two-tone blue Sedan de Ville. Arthur C. Albright, a father and marketing manager for a unit of the Allstate Insurance Company, wanted to sell his white-shuttered, four-bedroom home after his son finished high school this spring and move to a smaller house. Lower mortgage rates have helped make that possible, and this week he purchased a $67,000 two-bedroom townhouse in the same suburb with a finished basement, bar and fireplace. And Kathy Furore, an advertising copy writer who hunted last week in Chicago's Loop for lunch-hour bargains at Carson Pirie Scott's ''Pre-Fourth of July Sale,'' says she has stocked up on summer shorts and blouses. She also plans to use her pay raise for a clothes spending spree this fall.

PepsiCo Summerfare, the fourth in a series of annual celebrations of the ''lively arts,'' opens Thursday at the Purchase campus of the State University of New York. Produced by the college and its corporate neighbor, PepsiCo, the month-long festival will present theater, jazz and folk music concerts, dance, operatic performances and an international jugglers convention. The festival's traditional ceremonial opening will take place at 5 P.M. on Saturday with a parade from PepsiCo headquarters across the road to the campus. An outdoor production of Benjamin Britten's opera, ''Noah's Flood,'' will follow at 6 P.M. and everyone is invited to participate. ''Slip on a paper bag and be an animal,'' said Brooks Jones, Summerfare's director. This free event, Mr. Jones added, is ''a cross between Woodstock, a county fair, a rock concert and a real opera.'' Following are some of the highlights of this year's Summerfare program, which continues through Aug. 7: