What was going on when I was born?

Like most ranchers, the people up Currant Creek would just as soon shoot a beaver as look at it. For years, the animals had dammed the stream, flooded their hay meadows and plugged their drainage culverts with mud and sticks. Then, two years ago, the Federal Government started trapping the beavers and setting them loose at a site below the ranches where the banks of the creek had been badly eroded. The beavers, using timber left at streamside by Government biologists, built a series of dams that slowed the swift creek, checking the erosion that had turned the water brown with mud and had killed much of the vegetation.

New York's loss during the three-day power failure in the garment district last week has, to some extent, been Atlanta's gain. Many apparel buyers who were unable to visit New York showrooms and place orders for the Christmas season have come to Atlanta. So have some manufacturers who had not planned to be here for the city's six-day ''holiday market week,'' which started Friday. The manufacturers lost sales opportunities in New York when a water- main break and an electrical fire last Wednesday blacked out a 12-block area of midtown Manhattan.

An Associated Press dispatch published Aug. 5, 1982, contained incorrect information on the incidence of a fatal blood disease near a plant in Aiken, S.C., where fuel for nuclear weapons is produced. A corrective article appears on page A12.

They were still in last place, and they were still 20 games below the .500 level, but the Mets sustained their August revival yesterday by defeating the Chicago Cubs, 5-2, for the 11th victory in their last 14 games and a sweep of the three-game weekend series. They did it with all kinds of flourishes before 17,551 fans in Shea Stadium: eight innings of five-hit pitching by Ed Lynch, another ninth-inning appearance and another ''save'' by Jesse Orosco and a grand slam by George Foster that ended most of the suspense in the third inning. ''They outplayed us all weekend,'' said Lee Elia, the manager of the Cubs. ''They beat the daylights out of us.''

Nobody complains about Canadian capellini or Mexican macaroni, but mention Italy to an American pasta maker and you are likely to get an al dente snarl. Imports of Italian pasta have risen fivefold in the last few years, while the increase in demand for American products has withered, the Americans say. The National Pasta Association, a trade group of American producers, said the increased imports are a result of illegal subsidies that allow the Italians to undersell their American competitors. The association filed suit last year with international trade authorities to end the subsidies.

''The problem in Central America is not the show of force, it is the use of force.'' - Secretary of State George P. Shultz. (A1:6)

Gulf and Western Industries, in a widely expected streamlining move, said yesterday that it would take a $470 million write-off in its just-ended fiscal year to divest itself of several major lines of business, including its natural resources operations and two race tracks. The company said the charge would result in a loss for the fiscal year ended July 31 of about $215 million. Although the write-off and the projected loss are larger than analysts expected, the company had previously indicated its intent to get rid of many of its operating units. Martin Davis, the New York-based conglomerate's vice chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the businesses being sold were those ''which either do not fit with our core operations, are losing money, are profitable but have a poor return on investment or have limited growth potential.''

Companies Swiss officials seized documents belonging to Marc Rich, charging that the beleaguered commodity trading house may have broken Swiss corporate secrecy laws in agreeing to turn its files over to American authorities. (Page A1.) Gulf and Western said it will take a $470 million write-off in its fiscal year ended July 31 to divest itself of several marginal businesses. The long-expected streamlining will result in a loss of about $215 million for the year, the company said. (D1.)

The breakup of the Bell System marks the end of an era in telecommunications. But it also brings to a close an unusual episode in a private company's use of economic research, an undertaking that extended to A.T.& T.'s establishment of an economics research group within Bell Laboratories, a highly respected research journal, the company's own council of prominent economic advisers and even the sponsorship of numerous academic conferences. But there are no more conferences now. The council was disbanded in 1980. The journal, with some 6,000 paying subscribers, will be taken over by the Rand Corporation in December. And the noted Bell Laboratories Economics Research Center, which has been home to such noted economists as Elizabeth E. Bailey, Robert D. Willig and Roy Radner, is being phased out this year. The dissolution of this unusual range of undertakings has touched off discussion within the economics profession of how much has been accomplished through the will - and the financial backing - of one monopoly that was both ready and able to bankroll a whole field of economics. The end was prompted by the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation's reduced need for economic advice on regulatory matters because of its plan to dismantle the Bell System on Jan. 1 as part of an antitrust settlement with the Justice Department.

As Israel prepares to pull out of the Shuf mountains above Beirut, Lebanon is bracing for what could become a new chapter in the civil warfare that has torn it apart for the last eight years. At issue is whether the largely untested Lebanese Army can move into the military vacuum that will be left by the Israelis without setting off violent resistance from the newly rearmed Druse militiamen in the Shuf. The frail Government of President Amin Gemayel is in a momentous and unenviable predicament. If its army fails to pacify the Shuf, the Government's authority will suffer a crippling blow. But dispatching the army to the mountains could touch off battles that would have the same effects.

President Reagan was welcomed to Mexico today with a word of caution from President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. International problems are aggravated by ''shows of force,'' he said, and must instead be dealt with by constructive political dicussions. Mr. de la Madrid did not mention Central America or Mr. Reagan's dispatch of naval flotillas and troops to the region for maneuvers. But his comments were made in the context of Latin America and were considered an allusion to the continuing problems with conflicts in the region.

Governor Cuomo has called for major changes in the methods used to select judges for the New York State Court of Appeals, saying that the process under existing law limits his options unnecessarily and is unduly secretive. The Governor said in an interview, however, that the present system had thus far given him two ''really excellent'' choices: Richard D. Simons, who Mr. Cuomo appointed to the Court of Appeals last January, and Judith S. Kaye, who last week became the first woman nominated for that court, the state's highest tribunal. 12-Member Commission Under law, a 12-member Commission on Judicial Nomination, evaluates candidates for the Court of Appeals, and submits three to seven names to the Governor. That limit, Mr. Cuomo said, ''doesn't make any sense'' when there are more than seven well-qualified candidates available. The Governor is bound by law to pick a nominee from the panel's choices. The changes discussed by the Governor would require legislative approval or possibly an amendment to the State Constitution.