What was going on when I was born?

OUTDOOR space is one of New York's precious commodities, and those New Yorkers fortunate enough to have some - whether a sliver of terrace or a full backyard - are missing months of garden pleasures if they have not factored winter into garden design. ''To ignore designing a garden for winter,'' says the New York landscape designer Halsted S. Welles, ''is virtually to eliminate the garden for five or six months a year.'' While the thought of a winter garden may bring to mind images of weeping hemlocks capturing snow or honey locusts turning into white etchings, the New York city garden is more likely not to have much snow. It does not stick on windy terraces, and it usually does not drift in the garden hollows between buildings. While the Japanese have evolved a concept of the winter garden as a place in which snow blossoms, the idea is somewhat misplaced in New York, where urban circumstances conspire to make snow especially ephemeral.

Sixteen Israeli fighter-bombers, flying in four- plane formations, struck targets in eastern Lebanon today, reportedly inflicting heavy casualties. The Beirut radio said the raids, flown for an hour in the area of Baalbek, 40 miles east-northeast of here, left nearly 100 dead and 400 wounded. The International Committee of the Red Cross said its casualty count had reached 40 dead and 360 wounded and was still incomplete. Most of the casualties, it said, were civilians.

FOR the growing numbers of Americans engaged in the long-distance care of elderly relatives, stress can be a way of life. According to social scientists who have studied them, caretakers may be beset by staggering financial burdens, by the frustrations inherent in making medical or housekeeping arrangements at a distance and by confusion about the services that are available from government bureaucracies and social agencies. Frequently, too, there is the toll of emotional strain arising from dealing with elderly relatives' illness or incapacity. ''Somehow, you feel that if you're not present, you just aren't doing everything possible for your parent,'' said Crayton E. Rowe Jr. Last March, his 69-year-old mother, Lucille, became severely ill and needed to be hospitalized. Mr. Rowe, who lives in Manhattan, began flying back and forth to North Carolina to make arrangements during her hospital stay and to get ongoing care for her when she was recuperating at home. Mr. Rowe's perspective on the situation is unusual in that he is a psychoanalyst who has treated many people in similar caretaking sitations. But he found, as have others arranging for long-distance care, that even getting specific information about eligibility requirements for Federal, state and other services for the elderly in a far-off state may be difficult.

In a compromise with the Reagan Administration, the four-member board of the Export-Import Bank decided unanimously today to guarantee commercial export loans for a South Korean steel complex while refusing to lend Government money at subsidized interest rates. The bank, a Federal entity, also stipulated that its loan guarantee would be limited to 85 percent of the cost of the equipment that might be purchased from two Pennsylvania- based exporters bidding for contracts on the project - the Dravo Wellman Company of Pittsburgh and Air Products and Chemicals Inc. of Allentown. The question of aid for companies seeking to sell equipment for the South Korean facility has generated intense debate. The Commerce Department, in a rare intervention, asked that export assistance be denied entirely, on the ground that the United States should not aid construction of foreign steel plants when imports are hurting the domestic steel industry.

Administration officials told Republican Congressional leaders today that the diplomatic and military situation in Lebanon was showing some signs of improvement, and they asked the leaders to withhold any drastic action that could undercut that movement. A State Department official reported later that the American Embassy in Beirut said that negotiations by the Lebanese Government with several factions on expanding its area of control might bear fruit in the next few days. The Republican leaders at the meeting, in turn, warned the Administration that Congressmen and their constituents were rapidly losing patience with President Reagan's policy in Lebanon and demanding progress toward a more stable situation in the Middle East. Criticism Is Played Down The exchange came at a meeting this morning between Robert C. McFarlane, the President's national security adviser, and about 15 senior Republicans. Afterward, the party leaders said they were encouraged by the reports of progress and played down some of their recent criticisms of the Administration.

A 24-year-old Yale Divinity School student has been missing since early New Year's Day, when he reportedly took a break from a party in lower Manhattan to get some fresh air. The student, Samuel Todd, was born in New York and was described by his father, the Rev. George Todd, as ''urban wise.'' He was last seen by his younger brother, Adam, jogging along Mulberry Street toward Houston Street shortly after 1:30 A.M. He had been in New York during the holiday recess from Yale Divinity School in New Haven, where he is a resident student known for his activity on behalf of the hungry and oppressed. Family members and friends have helped the police in combing the Lower East Side and checking hospital admission lists and police records, but no trace of the young man has been found. The Rev. Howard Moody, pastor of Judson Memorial Church where the family once held membership when Samuel Todd was a child, has searched the area in the church bus, and police have checked the city morgue.

The Economy Paul Thayer resigned as Deputy Secretary of Defense, saying the S.E.C. plans to charge him with ''insider'' trading violations. He denied wrongdoing and said he would fight the case in court. Mr. Thayer is the third and most senior official in the Reagan Administration to quit amid questions about financial dealings before taking office. (Page A1.) In office, Mr. Thayer called attention to shoddy work by military contractors and tackled the problem of overpriced spare parts, but his gruff businessman's candor caused him problems. (D4.) Competitive measures that might reduce the cost of spare parts are being resisted by some Pentagon officials, including Mr. Thayer, according to a memorandum. (D4.) The Administration has tentatively decided on a 17 percent rise in military spending in the 1985 budget, according to an analysis by the budget director, David A. Stockman. That would compare with a rise of just over 3 percent for the rest of the budget. (A22.)

The Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Thayer, resigned today, saying that the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to charge him with illegally passing along ''insider'' stock trading information to others. The S.E.C. has been investigating for 10 months whether Mr. Thayer passed along privileged information to others in 1981 and 1982, when he was chairman of the LTV Corporation and a director of four other companies. Mr. Thayer left those positions last January to became the second-ranking Defense Department official after Caspar W. Weinberger, the Secretary. Intends to Fight Charges In his letter of resignation to President Reagan, Mr. Thayer said the S.E.C. ''allegation against me is entirely without merit.'' He added: ''I intend to vigorously defend this matter in the courts with every confidence that I will ultimately be exonerated.''

THAT the barns were not for sale never bothered Mariette or Raymond Gomez. Nor did the fact that a large portion of the roof had collapsed or that there were still dirt floors. ''The minute we saw the barns we knew they had to be ours,'' Mrs. Gomez said. ''Even as a wreck they were beautiful.'' The gabled roof and perfectly weathered shingles, classic symbols in American architecture, are what the Gomezes found so compelling. ''Also the great volume of space, 5,800 square feet of it,'' Mr. Gomez said. ''After coping with cramped city apartments, I knew there was something substantial here to work with.''

Transcript of address, page B8. ALBANY, Jan. 4 - Governor Cuomo opened the 207th session of the State Legislature today, pledging to avoid tax increases while supporting additional programs in job training, education, housing and aid to the homeless. Mr. Cuomo outlined, according to his own count in his second State of the State Message, 296 initiatives that would extend to all reaches of government between now and the year 2000. His message was largely a catalogue of these proposals, some old and some new, presented with few specifics and little in the way of priorities. Goals for the Future In a half-hour address and in his 72- page printed message, the Governor called for a $25 million job-training program, a large, but unspecified, increase in state aid for education, up to $6.5 billion in bonding authority for housing and economic development, an additional $8 million to house the homeless and a commission to plan the state's overall goals into the 21st century.

Gordon P. Getty, 49-year-old son of the late billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty, is to become chairman of a newly reorganized Getty Oil Company, Wall Street sources said yesterday. The report of Mr. Getty's appointment came after yesterday's announcement by Getty Oil, the J. Paul Getty Museum and Mr. Getty that the Pennzoil Company would join Mr. Getty in buying the Getty Oil stock they do not own for about $112.50 a share, or nearly $5.4 billion. The association between Mr. Getty and J. Hugh Liedtke, chairman and chief executive of Pennzoil, was developed in just two days this week, within hours after the two men met for the first time. Mr. Liedtke is to become president and chief executive of Getty Oil, according to sources familiar with the agreement.

''The 21st century is now so close, we can almost reach out and touch it.