What was going on when I was born?

Ray Perkins made a successful debut as a college football head coach today when his Alabama team methodically beat Georgia Tech, 20-7. Thus, Alabama's Ray Perkins era oficially began, and the Paul (Bear) Bryant era more or less ended. In 38 years, Bryant won 323 games, more than any other college head coach. Last December, when Bryant retired after 25 highly successful seasons at Alabama, he picked Perkins to succeed him. The announcement came with three games remaining in Perkins's fourth season as head coach of the Giants. Six weeks after the announcement, the 69-year-old Bryant died.

IT was the spring of 1980 when Donald E. Petersen, the newly named president of the Ford Motor Company, visited the corporate styling center to have a look at clay models of cars proposed for the future. Noticing that the designers there seemed a bit glum about what was in store for the next few years, Mr. Petersen asked if they really liked what they were presenting. The answer was no, and the upshot was a decision shortly thereafter by Mr. Petersen and the new chairman and chief executive officer, Phillip Caldwell, to loosen the reins that Ford executives had held on designers for years - perhaps permanently altering the way automobiles go from concept to finished product in Detroit. Since that time, designers at the No. 2 auto maker have been allowed to develop ideas without worrying too much about the whims of their bosses. Out of that freedom has come the smooth, uncluttered, sleekly aerodynamic look of Ford's new models, a sharp departure from the square, formal appearance of its older cars - and from everyone else's designs, too.

When it was built in 1923, the Midston House, at the corner of 38th Street and Madison Avenue, was conceived as a club-style hotel, with much of its space devoted to lounges and public rooms. But in a major renovation in the early 1960's the lounge space was converted into a street-level restaurant and the coffee shop was expanded.

In what was simply a study in domination, Martina Navratilova, the most successful female tennis player over the last two years, reaffirmed her claim as the world's best by thrashing Chris Evert Lloyd yesterday to win her first United States Open championship. The scores were 6-1, 6-3 in a final that lasted just 63 minutes. It was a convincing performance that awed not only the 20,819 sun- drenched fans at the National Tennis Center, but also Mrs. Lloyd, the defending champion. ''I think this was one of the matches where I was beaten the worst,'' Mrs. Lloyd said.

DICK has 10 computer programs and Jane has none. If Dick buys one more program and lends it to Jane to copy, how much software should Jane now have? The answer has less to do with mathematical ability than with ethics, and the question - in this case involving possible copyright infringement - is similar to many spawned by the proliferation of personal computers. According to area teachers who gathered recently for a training course in computers, such ethical - as opposed to computational - concerns are not stressed in primary and secondary schools that have been quick to join in the computer revolution. Often, they suggested, that neglect stems from pressures exerted by parents and by industry. The teachers were in Yorktown Heights earlier this month, at the campus of the Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services, for the final training phase of a new, $8 million, yearlong computer literacy program financed by the International Business Machines Corporation.

Early one morning last February, a Guatemalan linguist disappeared. He had been working on a United States education project in his country, and was last seen being driven by soldiers into a military base in northwestern Guatemala. Reagan Administration officials say the Guatemalan, Patricio Ortiz Maldonado, was murdered, along with three companions. A former Guatemalan Army officer familiar with the case says they were shot in cold blood by Guatemalan soldiers. The Guatemalan Government says the four were Communists who were killed by soldiers as they tried to escape from a military patrol. To many Reagan Administration officials, the case of Mr. Ortiz is a classic example of Government-condoned violence and its corrosive influence on societies and judicial systems. They also say it illustrates the difficulty of carrying out United States foreign policy in concert with nations such as Guatemala and El Salvador, which have no tradition of democratic rule in the United States mold.

Aclassic battle is shaping up between the President and the Congress over Lebanon, where the civil war is intensifying and American marines and other peacekeeping forces are taking increasing casualties and shooting back. It is classic in that it is likely to be more over form and procedure than substance; what there is of substance is likely to be more in the nature of handwringing than of exploring alternatives to the Administration's policy of hanging in there. No one doubts the danger and potential costs in Lebanon - growing Syrian influence, fighting that could heighten tensions with Israel anew, further delays for any broader Middle East peace effort, open-ended civil war and tragedy, more American marines killed. But nothing seems to exercise Congress as much as Presidential failure to follow legal procedure. Presidents are similarly indignant at having their hands tied on foreign policy by Congress. Until last week, the Administration managed to work around the legal obligation to bring the issue of American forces in Lebanon before Congress. It simply denied the marines were facing ''imminent hostilities'' and thus sidestepped the applicability of the War Powers Act.

Late last spring a community group in the Times Square area initiated an unsuccessful campaign to prevent the demolition of the old Seymour Hotel at 50 West 45th Street. The Landmarks Preservation Commission had identified the 81-year-old, 12-story brick Beaux Arts- style building as a structure it planned to consider for landmark designation, but the Seymour did not have any sort of protective status and was torn down in June to make way for a new structure.

American negotiators at the Geneva talks on medium-range nuclear missiles have been empowered to make new concessions, according to Administration officials. The officials said President Reagan gave the go-ahead to seek movement on several issues to Paul H. Nitze, the chief negotiator, last weekend. The general assessment of those interviewed was that the new American moves would lead to progress on some important issues but not to a major breakthrough in the talks, which have been going on for about 18 months. Timing of Move Mr. Reagan's approval of the steps came after the Soviet Union shot down a Korean airlilner, killing 269 people. One key official said, ''The whole atmosphere for the talks has been poisoned by what the Soviets did.''

DAVID Booth makes it look easy. Once a successful investment consultant with the Wall Street firm of A. G. Becker, Paribas Inc., he left in 1981 and set up his own office in the second bedroom of his brownstone apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Business seemed to fall in his lap: In only 18 months, his firm, Dimensional Fund Advisors, has landed 48 corporate pension fund accounts and now manages $650 million for clients like International Business Machines, Celanese, Standard Oil of Indiana and the Retirement System of Maryland. And he still has time to take midday jogs across the Brooklyn Bridge. But success has been more elusive for three other newcomers to the pension management business - Alexander Thomson, Richard Horstmann and William Bryant. With more than 30 years of experience at New York's Citibank under their collective belt, the three left portfolio management jobs at the bank early last year to form Thomson, Horstmann, Bryant Inc., which they hoped would attract large pension-management accounts. Though the firm on Lower Manhattan's Broad Street won't reveal its disappointing results, industry sources estimate that the three entrepreneurs have attracted only about $20 million in assets - peanuts, by pension-management standards.

The series of yacht races that will mark the 25th defense of the historic America's Cup is to start Tuesday at a buoy 7.8 miles southeast of the Brenton Reef Tower on Rhode Island Sound. The starting sequence is to begin when a white cylinder is hoisted and a gun is fired 10 minutes before the start, and at that point the challenger, Australia II, and the defender, Liberty, enter the course from opposite ends of the starting line. Their long-awaited meeting culminates a summer of grueling elimination trials at sea and heated controversey ashore in which the validity of the Australia II's design was challenged. The competition Tuesday, though, will be underscored by the fact that for the first time in the modern era of the series, the American defender is not the favorite. Ladbrokes, the leading British oddsmaker, has made Australia II the favorite at 8-11 with Liberty at even money in the four-of-seven-race series.

The television interview today with the pilot who shot down a Korean Air Lines 747 marked another reluctant step into the public view for the Soviet armed forces, which have been perhaps the most secretive in the world. In putting its version of the incident before the world, the Kremlin has divulged unusual scraps of information about its fighter aircraft, its air and naval bases in the Far East and the command system within the armed forces. The disclosures have also revealed what appear to be disastrous miscues that point to problems in training, equipment and command procedures. If the Soviet version is correct, perhaps the surest sign of these miscues came in the admission that Soviet air defenses tracked the 747 for two and a half hours before shooting it down, and never succeeded in identifying what kind of aircraft it was.