What was going on when I was born?

For many people, the urge to search for tax-saving strategies begins to stir only when the tax-filing season is actually upon them. Then, when they sit down with sharpened pencil and calculator and compute their income tax obligation, they belatedly discover a desperate need to scrounge for angles. The tax-cutting angles available at this late date are, of course, limited. After all, the tax return covers income and expenses for the year that ended Dec. 31, and any significant tax-saving measures should have been executed before then. But the tax law does provide time for a few transactions and a multitude of decisions that can save an individual hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in taxes.

When Karl Lerchenmueller Jr., a psychiatric patient at the Veterans Administration Hospital here, tried to take silverware from the hospital cafeteria back to his ward, the staff called the state police to arrest him for theft. And though his psychiatrists at the hospital knew he tended to become suicidal when he drank, he drank at a party on his ward on another occasion and later that night tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists. His psychiatrists knew, too, that he had had a terrible fear of being locked up ever since his Vietnam combat days. They knew, as one therapist put it, that he was a ''very messed-up man.'' Yet with all that was known about him, he was given an unsupervised day pass Dec. 2 to appear in court on the silverware-theft charges. And he drank. And he argued with the police officers who arrested him near the hospital for being disorderly. And five hours after being jailed, he hanged himself.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1984 Companies Charles R. Pierce resigned as Lilco's chairman and chief executive. No reason was given. Mr. Pierce's management of Lilco's Shoreham nuclear plant has been criticized, inside and outside the company, as excessively rigid, and opponents of the plant said his departure could speed a compromise on whether the $4 billion plant can be operated safely. (Page A1.) National Semiconductor faces indictment by a Federal grand jury in San Francisco on charges of fraudulent testing of electronic chips for the military, a Justice Department source said. (D1.)

Although stock prices dropped again yesterday and Federal budget deficits still loom large, Wall Street officials expressed relief that Ronald Reagan had decided to seek a second term. They seemed confident of his re-election and thus were particularly pleased with the prospect of no major shifts in economic policy. ''We have not had a President serve two full terms since Eisenhower, and I think the country needs continuity,'' said Donald B. Marron, chairman and chief executive of Paine Webber Inc. ''If we elect someone whose philosophy is totally different, without getting into who, the economy will be subject to another shock, and I don't think the economy can handle a shock.'' At Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., Robert M. Gardiner, chairman and chief executive, said: ''I think the President's program has been very constructive to the economy of this country, and he is essential to the continued implementation of his program. I think it would have been disaster if he had said anything else.''

Among the food on sale at the teeming central market in this provincial capital today were large bags of wheat, corn and rice marked as American aid and stamped ''Not to be sold or exchanged.'' At other market stalls, vendors were offering tins of cooking oil with similar markings. ''There seems to be a leak through which food sent to be distributed free is finding its way into the market,'' a local clergyman said today. He said food aid sent by the United States had been on sale at the San Vicente market for several months.

NewsAnalysis At the service commemorating the opening of St. Bartholomew's Church in 1918, the Rev. Terence Findlay explained to the assembled parishioners the philosophy that had guided the building's design. ''You have built your sanctuary with strength and beauty,'' he said, ''not for parish vanity or pride, but for a nobler purpose - that as from time to time you enter through its doors, you may be made to feel the presence of God, which no other kind of house made with hands can give.'' Churches such as St. Bartholomew's have traditionally been designed to be symbolic statements, to capture in brick and mortar the loftiness and monumentality of the message they espouse. But although architectural distinction may once have been alluring spiritually, officials at St. Bartholomew's and elsewhere now argue it can be debilitating financially.

MANY a boss has been blamed for an ulcer, and many a sympathetic spouse has been praised as a refuge against stress. But new research findings challenge both those stereotypes: A boss can be a crucial defense against stress, while some research suggests that a family's support may even make things worse. The results promise to change the way we perceive the relationship between work, the family and stress. ''The standard view,'' says Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist expert in treating stress, ''is that a strong home base is the haven from which we face a heartless world. But even the best-intentioned family can't offer you the tools to handle work stress that your boss can.''

Bishop John J. O'Connor of Scranton, Pa., a conservative theologian who helped write the recent antinuclear letter of the American Roman Catholic bishops, will be named today to head the Archdiocese of New York, church sources said last night.Bishop O'Connor, who is 64 years old, spent 27 years as a Navy chaplain, rising to the rank of rear admiral. He declined to talk to reporters last night. But a news conference was scheduled this morning at St. Peter's Cathedral in Scranton, the seat of the diocese he has headed since last June 30. The official announcement is expected to be made this morning by Pio Laghi, the Papal Nuncio in Washington, the official representative of Pope John Paul II in this country.

A United States marine was killed and three others were wounded today when their compound at the international airport was bombarded by anti-Government militiamen. The marine was the first one killed in Lebanon fighting since Jan. 8 and the 259th American serviceman to die here since the arrival of the marines in August 1982. A Marine spokesman, Capt. Keith Oliver, said the marine died on a stretcher while waiting to be evacuated by helicopter to the carrier Guam for treatment of his wounds. Marines Return Fire A spokesman for the Lebanese Shiite Amal militia said fire from the Marine base had killed 2 people and wounded 15 in the Shiite shantytowns of Hayy al Sollom and Burj al Brajneh adjacent to the Marine compound, where some of the militiamen sniping at the Marines were entrenched.

THE 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes thought the pineal body was the seat of the rational soul. Some 1,400 years before him, the great Greek physician Galen believed it was a valve to regulate the flow of thoughts out of storage in the brain. Many 20th century scientists, scoffing at these outmoded ideas, decided that the pineal body in humans had no important function at all. But new scientific evidence shows that the pineal body performs some very important tasks, though these are quite unrelated to the ideas of Galen and Descartes. The pineal body, sometimes called the pineal gland, is a small structure near the center of the brain, although it is not actually a part of the brain. White or pinkish gray in color, it is about a quarter of an inch long and shaped like a pine cone (''pinea'' in Latin), from which it takes its name. It weighs less than one one-hundredth of an ounce. The new evidence indicates that the pineal body is a powerful factor in the hormonal changes that usher in adolescence. It seems to work through a hormone it secretes, called melatonin, that inhibits the chemistry of sexual maturation. The pineal body is believed to be

News Analysis Throughout the long and turbulent history of school desegregation, one of the most inflammatory issues has been the requirement that families send their children to schools not of their choosing. Thus a concept known as the ''magnet'' school, adopted on a limited scale during the 1970's, has had special appeal because it is based on voluntarism: The family selects the school that it wants. Schools in minority neighborhoods are made to offer some attraction powerful enough to bring about that choice, such as a special emphasis on music or science or basics. Fresh attention is being focused on this concept because of an agreement by the Federal Government on Wednesday to allow the public school system in Bakersfield, Calif., to use a racial desegregation plan that avoids mandatory busing in favor of an exclusive reliance on the voluntary approach embodied in magnet schools ''This is a blueprint for desegregation,'' said William Bradford Reyn olds, Assistant Attorney General for civil rights.

A United States marine was killed and three other marines were wounded when their compound at Beirut International Airport was bombarded by anti-Government militiamen. (Page A1, Column 6.) The chief American negotiator on reducing strategic arms met with President Reagan and said later that the United States and the Soviet Union were in a positon ''to make a breakthrough'' if Moscow agreed to resume the talks in Geneva. In a shift, the negotiator, Edward L. Rowny, said Washington would be willing to consider merging the talks on strategic arms with those on medium-range missiles if the Soviet Union proposed it. (A1:2.)