What was going on when I was born?

Sidelined in Detroit? Production is more than 60 percent above last year and profits for 1983 seem headed for a record, but these are nervous days in Detroit. The auto industry is beginning to question the durability of its recovery. After stabilizing at an annual rate of about 7 million units for the past four months, new-car sales in the first half of November suddenly slipped, to 6.6 million.

Bo Jackson, Auburn's sophomore halfback who has been named to some all-America teams this season, showed again today why he was selected. Jackson had touchdown runs of 69 and 71 yards to lead Auburn to a 23-20 victory over Alabama. His second long scoring run, at 12 minutes 57 seconds of the third period, provided the winning points as Auburn overcame a 20-16 deficit before about 75,000 fans at Legion Field. He finished with 256 yards.

AssassinationSets Off MoreBeirut TensionAn assassination in Beirut last week reminded all the players in the Lebanese drama of the tenuousness of the cease-fire that had calmed the factional fighting since Sept. 26. Visits to Washington by Lebanese President Amin Gemayel and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir stressed the ''genuine sense of urgency'' about the situation and the need for political solutions. An unknown gunman entered the West Beirut home of a prominent Druse, Sheik Halim Takieddin, head of the Supreme Druse Religious Court, and murdered him. Druse leader Walid Jumblat, who spends most of his time in Damascus since he narrowly escaped assassination a year ago, vowed vengeance and Beirut, under dusk-to-dawn curfew, tensed for more fighting. The cease- fire had begun to break down before the assassination as Druse and Lebanese Army artillery traded rounds and the airport once again had to be closed. Another member of the French peacekeeping force - the 77th - died, the victim of an ambush that appeared also to be an act of revenge, this time for the French shelling Nov. 17 of Moslem Shiite positions. An Israeli soldier died and four were wounded in an ambush in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli planes retaliated against Syrian-backed Moslem groups in the Shuf. The Israeli command claimed ''accurate hits'' on the bases of ''several terrorist organizations.'' French jets were also in the air, locating artillery batteries threatening French positions.

PROHIBITION, one of the most divisive issues in the nation's history, ended 50 years ago tomorrow - Dec. 5, 1933 - when the 18th Amendment, which had banned alcoholic beverages for almost 14 years, was repealed. According to a Federal report, New Jersey was the ''wettest'' state in the nation during those 14 years. Among the factors that made it so were: - A Democrat who pledged to ''make New Jersey as wet as the Atlantic Ocean'' was elected Governor in 1919. - The average tenure of a Prohibition administrator in the state was less than nine months. In the first nine years, 11 left in disgust or disgrace.

First Avenue, which already has a large stock of new apartments, is getting 396 more. Construction will begin soon on two high-rise condominiums on the avenue, both to be completed in the spring of 1985.

An agreement was reached tonight to end the monthlong strike of drivers against Greyhound Lines, the nation's largest bus line. No details were released immediately, but the settlement apparently represented a compromise between the company's demand that it be allowed to become more competitive by cutting wages by almost 10 percent and the union's refusal to consider any reduction. The agreement was ''overwhelmingly'' approved by the union's bargaining council and accepted by Greyhound, said a Federal mediator, Kay McMurray.

It was the presence of Houston's Ralph Sampson that sold out Madison Square Garden last night, but it was Bernard King who captivated the crowd of 19,591 by scoring 31 points and leading the Knicks to a 117-101 victory over the Rockets. The victory was the Knicks' fourth straight and their 11th in the last 13 games, giving them a season mark of 13-6. After the first period the crowd did not see much of Sampson, the 7-foot 4-inch rookie center who was a three- time college player of the year at Virginia and the first choice in the draft last June. He scored 9 of his 14 points in the opening period but also picked up 2 fouls. He added 3 more in a span of 5 minutes 8 seconds of the third quarter. After returning at the start of the fourth quarter, he finally fouled out of the game with 3:51 remaining.

For some time, President Reagan has been rankled by his semiannual duty to certify progress on human rights and land reform in El Salvador as a condition for continuing military aid. Last week, he got rid of the obligation by killing a bill extending the certification requirement. The President's action, in a pocket veto, might prove embarrassing to Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and American- supported moderates in El Salvador. With White House approval, Mr. Pickering had publicly condemned the recent surge of killings by right- wing death squads, warning the Salvadoran Government on Nov. 25 that by failing to crack down, it ''runs an extremely serious risk'' of causing a cutoff of American aid. Four days later, the Administration announced it was denying an entry visa to Roberto d'Aubuisson, the president of the Salvadoran Constituent Assembly, who has been linked to right- wing terrorism. But the subsequent veto of the certification requirement sends a different signal; officials in Washington and Salvadoran politicians from moderate parties said it could be interpreted in El Salvador as tacit White House approval for right-wing terrorism, which the Administration at the same time continued to condemn. Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam told a Miami conference on trade and investment in the Caribbean that right-wing terrorists in El Salvador and Guatemala were largely responsable for Marxist successes in the Caribbean region.

TRENTON ALTHOUGH training in 17 occupations is available to inmates at New Jersey's state prisons, few, according to correction officials, take advantage of it. One official, Lucas J. Filliponi, chief of the Correction Department's Bureau of State Use Industries, said in an interview that acquiring skills and working could lead to earlier release but that only 11 percent of the 13,000 inmates in the state prisons worked. Prisoners, Mr. Filliponi said, ''are not receptive to learning.'' ''They try to con their way out of every activity that will help themselves and the state,'' he said. ''By law, they don't have to work. They know this.''

THE state's Department of Health is investigating whether a group of Essex County radiologists violated New Jersey's health-planning regulations by buying a $1.5 million diagnostic device without the department's approval. State officials already have warned a Morristown-based corporation that such approval, known as a Certificate of Need, is required before it can place the same type of device in the offices of four to six doctors next year. The Essex radiologists, Montclair Radiological Associates, and NMR of America, the Morristown corporation that leases the machines, are expected to challenge any state-imposed sanctions in court. At issue is who should be allowed to install nuclear magnetic resonance scanners, the latest technology for obtaining pictures of what lies beneath the skin.

JACK VALENTI, who served as a special assistant to President Johnson, was skeptical that baseball's commissioner-search committee could keep its pursuits secret. ''Even National Security Council memos get leaked to the press,'' said Valenti, who earlier in the year was mentioned as a possible candidate for the job Bowie Kuhn is scheduled to vacate Dec. 31. However, the yearlong proceedings of the search committee, headed by Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers, have been conducted under the sort of secrecy that shrouds the Academy Award voting, with which Valenti, as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, is familiar. As a result, many of baseball's club owners will go to Nashville for their annual winter meetings this week not knowing if the committee will do any of the following: (1) recommend a successor to Kuhn, (2) present two or more candidates for a vote, (3) simply present a status report on its progress. Until last Friday, even the eight committee members did not know for sure what they would take with them to the Opryland Hotel for the meeting Thursday with their fellow owners. But when they met in Chicago on Friday, it became virtually certain that a status report would be their only contribution in Nashville.

Spacelab GetsUp to Business After keeping fingers crossed and pocketbooks open for a decade, European nations finally saw their $1 billion Spacelab carried into orbit last week by the shuttle Columbia. The bus-sized cannister, chockablock with experiments, sent a torrent of data back to earth. ''Columbia is America's dream - if that dream doesn't work, ours won't either,'' the director of Spacelab's prime contractor in West Germany said in 1981. At week's end, the mission had developed a few kinks - the film jammed in a special mapping camera and an electron gun failed - but things were still going well enough to help heal some of the diplomatic wounds caused by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's long struggle with shuttle development. West Germans picked up more than half of Spacelab's cost and also placed a Stuttgart physicist on board this premier flight.