What was going on when I was born?

Lech Walesa, the founder of the outlawed Solidarity Union, called tonight for a "struggle" against the Government's plan to increase the price of food. Mr. Walesa's declaration came after he met secretly with underground union activists. "Working people cannot agree to price increases," Mr. Walesa said in a statement reaching Western journalists. "The union's obligation is to organize a struggle in defense of their interests."

The Christmas shopping season, which traditionally starts the Friday after Thanksgiving, carries this year the brightest prospects of any holiday season in a long time, according to retailers, analysts and economists. They predict that sales gains in the 30-day season - which has one more shopping day than last year - will range from 8 to 25 percent, with 12 percent the most frequently mentioned number. The improved national economy, particularly lower unemployment and inflation as well as greater consumer confidence, are the bases for the strong predictions. With apparel inflation running at just over 3 percent, the potential real sales gains have especially built retailer ebullience because of the holiday season's disproportionate contribution to the year's results. The Christmas season normally accounts for as much as 35 percent of the year's sales and as much as 50 percent of the year's profits.

A large, unexpected surplus of crude oil and refined petroleum products has come onto the market during the past month. Barring an unusually cold winter, the excess supplies should mean lower prices for heating oil and gasoline. The oil surplus, coming seven months after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its crude prices to stimulate demand, has also led to mounting conjecture that OPEC may lower its prices again in December. On Friday, in one of several indications of the excess of supplies worldwide, the Soviet Union said it was cutting the price of crude oil it exports by 50 cents a barrel, to $29. On the same day the Sun Company, a large United States producer, said it was lowering its wholesale price of heating oil by a cent a gallon, to 82.5 cents. Analysts said they expected other oil companies to reduce wholesale prices this week.

''All of us are very angry. It is unfair to do this in Tripoli.

The 1984 model year is being seen as the year of the turbocharger for the American automobile industry. The Big Three auto makers, betting that buyers will pay more to have extra power available on demand, are projecting combined sales of nearly 300,000 turbocharged cars for the model year, compared to just 15,700 in the 1983 model year. To attain that goal, Detroit will have to overcome resistance to turbocharging that developed during the late 1970's, when the few domestic turbo models on the market proved to be unreliable and difficult. And there will be price resistance to consider - turbochargers increase power without greatly reducing fuel economy, but they are a complicated, and expensive, accessory.

Israeli jets bombed pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla bases in the mountains east of here today, and one attacking plane was shot down, apparently by a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. According to Western and Lebanese military sources, seven planes bombed offices of the Syrian-backed As Saiqa Palestinian guerrilla group and the Syrian Baath Party in Falugha and Sofar. They were also said to have attacked a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command in nearby Baal Shemaa. All of the targets were in predominantly Druse villages in aras under the general control of the Syrian Army and its Palestinian guerrilla allies around Bhamdun, about 15 miles east of Beirut. Third Attack Since Nov. 4 A spokesman at the Israeli military liaison office in Christian East Beirut said the air strikes had come "in response to a long series of attacks and attempted attacks "against Israeli soldiers, including the planting of a roadside charge in Sidon last Thursday that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded six others.

On one of his first visits to the Chelsea Hotel, Ulick O'Connor saw a distinguished-looking man standing at the reception desk. Curious, Mr. O'Connor, a poet and biographer fromDublin, inquired about his fellow guest's identity. ''I was told he was Dracula's cousin and, naturally, I thought it was a joke,'' Mr. O'Connor recalled. ''But then it turned out the guy was Count Roderick Gheka, the son of the crown prince of Rumania and a direct descendant of Count Vlad, the real Dracula. And the funny thing was when I talked to him I found out his mother was Maureen O'Connor, a distant relative of my father.''

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said tonight that a television portrayal of nuclear war "dramatizes the unacceptability" of such a conflict. He said it showed the need for the Reagan Administration's policies but that it did not represent "the future at all. "It says to those who have criticized the President for seeking arms reductions that that is the course to take," Mr. Shultz said in an interview on the ABC public affairs program "Viewpoint" after the television movie "The Day After" was broadcast. He added, "What we should be doing is rallying around and supporting" President Reagan's policies.

"Sold for 100,000 francs¸" The auctioneer banged an ivory gavel, and applause swept through Beaune's medieval market hall today at the 123d annual auction of wine from the vineyards of the Hospice de Beaune. Andre Boisseau, head of a wine merchants' firm called Patriarche, had just bid about $12,000 for a single cask of wine from a vineyard that was given to the Hospice by Nicholas Rollin, chancellor to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy when he founded this charitable hospital in 1443. Last year a similar barrel - enough for about 300 bottles - cost 17,600 francs, or $2,200. Don't worry though. The price of Burgundy is not going up sixfold this year. The single cask from the Rollin vineyard was being auctioned to benefit cancer research, and Mr. Boisseau said he paid a fancy price out of charity and to gain publicity for his firm.

For months now, the 3.2 million stockholders of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company have been deluged with mail, sales pitches and advice - all relating to the forthcoming breakup of Ma Bell into eight new companies. For the stockholders, the result has been mass confusion, which promises to reach a crescendo this morning when trading starts in the new shares. The average stockholder holds 170 shares, and more than 60 percent of them own 100 shares or fewer. So what should you do if you own 100 shares of Telephone? Buy? Sell? Do nothing? Switch into a telephone fund? Change into a mutual fund? "For the average shareowner," said Ivan L. Wolff of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, "doing nothing right now seems the simplest and best strategy."

Israel lost a plane in its bombing of pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrilla bases in the mountains east of Beirut. Western and Lebanese military sources said two American-manufactured Israeli F-16's and five Israeli- made Kfirs bombed offices of the Syrian-backed As Saiqa Palestinian guerrilla group and the Syrian Baath Party in Falugha and Sofar. They were also said to have attacked a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Command in nearby Baal Shemaa. The targets were in predominantly Druse villages. (Page A1, Column 6.) The residents of Tripoli expressed bitterness at becoming victims of a Palestinian feud as heavy barrages of artillery shells sprayed the city. The shelling in the city and the nearby Beddawi refugee camp has lately been the most intense of the 18-day battle between loyalists of Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and rebels who accuse him of being too moderate toward Israel. (A1:5.)

The mourning for Anne Pfreundschuh, the period of public grief, lasted three long days. On Thursday, Nov. 10, two days after she was found slain, 500 classmates at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn marched in the rain and gathered for a silent vigil. On Friday they returned for a memorial service a few blocks from the campus. And the next morning, in a stone church on a wind-whipped hill in Boonton, N.J., the people of her hometown gathered in large numbers for her funeral. At first glance, it seemed surprising that someone so young could, in death, draw so many to her side. She was 21 years old, one of five children and one of 3,800 students on a busy campus.