What was going on when I was born?

Record Federal budget deficits threaten to make the economic recovery a short one, some of the nation's governors warned today. ''If we're not willing to face up to some tax increases pretty soon, we might as well kiss the recovery goodbye,'' said Gov. Scott M. Matheson of Utah, chairman of the National Governors' Association. ''It'll be a blip on the screen.'' Mr. Matheson, a Democrat, spoke at a news conference opening the association's annual meeting.

Corporate profits, which were dismal a year ago, recovered strongly in the second quarter, although sectors as diverse as steel and home electronics tarnished the overall picture. Among the major American companies reporting a strong surge in earnings from a year earlier were those in automobiles, oil, paper and retailing. Many benefited from increased consumer spending, lower interest rates, moderating wages and a reduction in fixed costs.

For Jack Tramiel, the losses at Texas Instruments' home computer division are sweet revenge. By most accounts, Texas Instruments nearly drove Mr. Tramiel's company, Commodore International Ltd., into bankruptcy eight years ago. The Texas company, which had supplied computer chips to Commodore for its hand-held calculators, suddenly decided to make its own calculators, and it used its impressive manufacturing ability and its control over parts prices to help drive Commodore out of the market. Mr. Tramiel, Commodore's chief executive, ''swore he would never again get caught without his own manufacturing ability,'' said Peter Wright, a computer analyst with the Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn. ''And he never did.''

Shearson/American Express, the big Wall Street investment house, said yesterday that it had offered to buy the Government's rights to 14.4 million shares of the Chrysler Corporation, but that the Government had rejected the offer. Other Wall Street firms, meanwhile, were thought to be considering offers of their own. The Government obtained the rights three years ago when it agreed to guarantee up to $1.5 billion in loans to the auto producer. The warrants represent 9 percent of Chrysler's stock outstanding.

The acute shortage of blood in the New York metropolitan area has eased, the director of the Greater New York Blood Program said yesterday. The director, Dr. Johanna Pindyck, said her organization was no longer asking hospitals to postpone any nonemergency surgery because of a lack of blood for transfusions. However, the supply of some types of blood is still at a ''precarious'' level, Dr. Pindyck said. ''If in one day a very large use occurred, we would still be in a perilous position,'' she said.

Jan Stephenson, the 31-year-old Australian who said she liked hot weather and was used to it, nearly wilted at the finish but held on to win the 38th annual United States Women's Open championship today by one shot over JoAnne Carner and Patty Sheehan. With a bogey at each of the last two holes ''because I was choking and so nervous,'' Miss Stephenson shot three- over-par 74 in the final round at Cedar Ridge Country Club for a 72-hole score of six-over 290, the highest winning score in an Open in six years. She thus became the third foreign-born golfer to win a United States Women's Open and the first since Catherine Lacoste of France, an amateur, won in 1967. Fay Crocker of Uruguay won in 1955.

MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1983 International The President's special envoy to Central America, Richard B. Stone, met for the first with a leader of El Salvador's rebels, according to the President of Colombia. President Belisario Betancur said in Bogota that he had acted as a ''go-between'' in a meeting held by Mr. Stone and Ruben Zamora, a director of the Democratic Revolutionary Front, one of five leftist guerrilla organizations fighting the United States-backed Salvadoran Government. (Page A1, Column 6.) The United States accused Libya of ''open aggression'' against Chad, its southern neighbor, and called for an immediate withdrawal of Libyan forces from the former French colony. The charge followed reports from Chad's capital that Libyan planes had twice bombed a strategically important town since Saturday. (A1:4.)

Israeli officials said today that as a result of talks with Reagan Administration officials in Washington last week there was virtually no disagreement between Israel and the United States on the situation in Lebanon. ''The trip was the most successful ever made by Israeli ministers to Washington,'' a senior Israeli official said. ''The results symbolized the very deep understanding between us and the United States on questions regarding Lebanon.'' In stressing the agreement reached during the trip, the Israeli officials seemed to be seeking to reinforce the impression that the two countries had entered a period of relative harmony after the frictions caused by the Israeli invasion of Lebanon last year.

''We move with blinding speed,'' said Arnold C. Greenberg, president and chief executive officer of Coleco Industries. ''And we never try to be the lowest-priced competitor.'' For Coleco, a Hartford-based video game maker, that strategy has paid off handsomely. Last fall, its Colecovision game system, which can play software made by other manufacturers as well as its own, put the company in direct competition with Atari and Mattel for the first time. When the dust cleared in the second quarter of this year, Coleco was the only one of the big three video game producers to emerge with a profit. It earned $9.1 million, up from $7.4 million in the 1982 quarter. And for all of last year, profits soared to $44.9 million from $7.7 million in 1981.

Throughout the Mets' losing streaks, Manager Frank Howard has complained loudly and often about their lack of scoring and occasional lack of effort. Under Howard's theory, a National League team without good pitching needs to score about four runs a game to be competitive. The Mets have averaged 3.1. But yesterday they supplied runs and a big overall effort to win two 12-inning games from the division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates before 17,591 fans at Shea Stadium.

Down in the decaying business district, along the derelict piers and up among the restored Victorian houses that dot the hills, the talk yesterday was much the same all over the Staten Island neighborhood of Stapleton. ''This community is in for change like we haven't seen in years,'' said Helen Pose, a Stapleton resident for more than 50 years. ''I'm ecstatic. Stapleton was developing a terrible reputation. The Navy is the best thing that could have happened here.''

Officials of the American textile industry today denounced a textile trade agreement between the United States and China, complaining that the flow of Chinese- made apparel into this country could damage the industry. Bill Brock, the President's special trade representative, confirmed today that American and Chinese negotiators had signed an agreement on textile exports to the United States, breaking a seven-month deadlock. Mr. Brock said that the new, five- year quota agreement was final, for all practical purposes, and that remaining higher-level approval was a mere formality. The agreement was reported Saturday in Geneva, where the talks were held, by the official New China News Service.