What was going on when I was born?

The number of the ''oldest elderly'' - those at least 85 years of age - more than doubled in New York City in the last two decades, and city officials are finding new ways to help this dependent population. One successful effort has been an experiment by the City Planning Department and the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn in which people who would otherwise have been kept in a hospital are returned home, where they are cared for by trained attendants. Other programs being tried to help those who are confined to their homes offer food (Meals on Wheels), companions or housekeepers. ''You have to tailor programs to meet specific needs,'' said Marvin D. Roth, director of human resources in the planning agency.

The control of the New Jersey Legislature will be at stake tomorrow in the most expensive off- year election in the state's history. The Democrats had narrow majorities of 21 to 19 in the Senate and 43 to 37 in the Assembly during the last session of the Legislature, and the Republicans are outspending the Democrats by more than 3 to 1 on the state and local levels as they try to gain the legislative leadership for the coming session. Reports filed with the State Election Law Enforcement Commission covering campaign finances through Oct. 30 showed the Republicans' statewide campaign committee had raised $2.2 million and the Democratic committee $885,984. In addition, about $4 million, much of it from political action committees, has been raised by the candidates themselves.

After more than two months of international crises, beginning with the Soviet downing of a Korean airliner on Sept. 1 and extending to last month's bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut and the invasion of Grenada, Secretary of State George P. Shultz has emerged as the paramount voice in the Reagan Administration's foreign policy. According to a wide range of key officials, Mr. Shultz and his top aides have become the strongest advocates in the Administration for using military force as an instrument of diplomacy in the Middle East and the Central American and Caribbean region, often in the face of what officials say have been Pentagon doubts or opposition. At the same time, officials said Mr. Shultz's ascendancy, along with the departure of William P. Clark as national security adviser and White House concern about President Reagan's vulnerabilities on foreign affairs in next year's election, was producing a steadier and less ideological foreign policy. 'A Common Thread' Underneath everything, most officials interviewed agreed, was the effect of the crises on the President himself. A senior official said, ''Grenada, Beirut and the K.A.L. airliner all served to confirm in the President's mind his own view of the world, that there was a common thread to all these events and it all led back to Moscow.''

News Analysis TOKYO, Nov. 6 - President Reagan's scheduled arrival here Wednesday for a three-day visit comes at a time when Japanese seem uncertain whether they are on good or bad terms with the United States. If they wished, Mr. Reagan and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone could find plenty to talk about to make them mutually unhappy. Japan still does not spend enough on defense to satisfy many Americans, two-way trade is likely to produce a $23 billion deficit for the United States this year and continued high unemployment has left some Americans with the notion that the Japanese are responsible for many of their troubles. There is grousing, too, on this side of the Pacific, mostly out of conviction that every time something goes wrong in the United States, Japan is made a scapegoat. The sense that this country tends to be picked on unfairly is sufficiently engrained for a new word to have cropped up in some circles here: ''goatability.'' It is used only partly in jest.

Richard P. Cooley, chairman, president and chief executive officer of the Seafirst Corporation, wears a pin on his lapel that says: Expect Excellence. The gold-colored plastic pin is part of Mr. Cooley's campaign to whip the troubled banking company back into shape, improve internal morale and rebuild public confidence. ''Although a lot of customers have been asking for the pins, they're only for our staff,'' said Mr. Cooley. But a few blocks away, G. Robert Truex Jr., chairman of the Rainier Bancorporation and Mr. Cooley's arch competitor, wears one of Seafirst's pins on his lapel.

Yasir Arafat's troops lost one of his two remaining strongholds in Lebanon to Syrian-backed Palestinian insurgents after three days of intense shelling and rocket fire. Mr. Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said he was regrouping his forces to continue the fight. (Page A1, Column 6.) More than 100 bodies have been found on the southern tip of Grenada, according to a United States official in the capital. He said that one of the bodies was presumed to be that of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was slain on Oct. 19. The official said that virtually all of the victims were also believed to have been fatally shot at a rally on Oct. 19. (A1:4-5.)

When John S. R. Shad took over as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1981, he served notice that he would not dawdle in carrying out President Reagan's mandate to lighten up on business. Mr. Shad, who came to Washington from Wall Street, has indeed moved quickly. Under his leadership, the S.E.C. has eased the reporting requirements for most companies; made it easier, especially for small companies, to sell securities, and has reduced the minimum capital requirements for brokerage firms. The latter action alone, agency officials say, has freed $500 million in capital.

Justice Department officials say they have won many significant battles in the last two or three years in a decades-old war against organized crime. In all major cities where traditional organized crime exists, they say, most of the top leaders are either in prison or facing charges. ''It's the greatest achievement we've had in organized crime,'' said Floyd I. Clarke, deputy assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's criminal investigative division. ''In every city where there is a major organized crime family, we have indicted and/or convicted the top echelons of that family, and that's all within the past few years.'' But Mr. Clarke, as well as outside experts who share his assessment, caution that organized crime is still a serious problem and that it continues to operate while leaders are in jail. To suppress it, they say, the recent gains will have to be sustained for a long period.

Yuri V. Andropov, the Soviet leader, was absent today from the group of Politburo members reviewing the traditional Revolution Day parade, heightening speculation that he may be seriously ill. It was the first time in memory that a Soviet leader failed to attend the Nov. 7 parade, the highpoint of the Soviet calendar when eyes at home and abroad are fixed on the leadership.

Earnings of the nation's leading corporations in the third quarter appear, at first glance, to have exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic shareholder. But many analysts express disappointment that the stock market has not responded to the gains with the same vigor that earnings have responded to the economic recovery. A compilation of 284 industrial companies shows that, by and large, performances were strong in the three months ended Sept. 30, with dozens of companies doubling and tripling their net incomes and many others turning red ink into black. (Details of the reports appear on page D13.)

A new split in the once-solid farm bloc is imperiling passage in the House this week of a compromise milk price support bill that would, for the first time, pay dairy farmers to reduce production. An unlikely coalition of livestock raisers, consumer protection groups and the largest farm organization urged House members to defeat a dairy bill, already opposed by the Reagan Administration, when it reaches the House floor Wednesday. The legislation, passed last month by the Senate, would halve a special assessment on all dairy farmers to 50 cents per hundred pounds of milk their cows yield. It would also initiate a new milk price support program in which these farmers would be paid $10 for each hundred pounds of milk not produced.

A United States official said tonight that more than 100 bodies had been found on the southern tip of Grenada. The official said that one of the bodies was ''presumed'' to be that of former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, but this was not confirmed. The official said that virtually all of the victims were believed to have been shot dead at a rally on Market Square in St. George's, the Grenadian capital, on Oct. 19. Mr. Bishop and four former Cabinet members were killed at the same rally, which was held one week after his Government was overthrown. Found at Training Camp The official said that initial estimates of the number killed at the rally had ranged from 17 to 200. The official said the bodies had been found in a training camp in Chevigny that had been used by the People's Revolutionary Army, the Grenadian military.