What was going on when I was born?

THE Times Mirror Company, the media conglomerate whose flagship is The Los Angeles Times, is basking in prosperity. Just this month, it reported that net income had risen by 43 pecent last year, to a record $200 million, on revenues of almost $2.5 billion, also a record. A big chunk of the earnings came from The Los Angeles Times, which runs more advertising than any other newspaper in the country, and from Newsday, the hugely successful Long Island daily that also combines high advertising revenues with quality news coverage. ''The Times Mirror Company represents one of the finest diversified media companies we have,'' said R. Joseph Fuchs, vice president and media analyst at Kidder, Peabody & Company, the investment house. ''They have invested heavily to build a strong base for the future.''

Interest Rate Worries Last week was full of good news for the economy. But, in some quarters, the robust growth statistics sparked worries that interest rates could be on the rise - even before March is over. First the Government reported that personal income grew 1.1 percent from December to January and that during the same period, personal spending grew 1.2 percent, housing starts surged 15 percent and retail sales climbed 2.2 percent. Then the Federal Reserve reported last Thursday that M-1, the basic money-supply measure, had jumped $2.5 billion, compared with an expected $1.8 billion.

NEW HAVEN C RATES of dented cans of soup, corn and other food line one wall. Along the other walls thousands of boxes are piled up, filled with unsold containers of soft drinks, dry cereals and many other commercially prepared foods. Here, in the chilly warehouse of the Connecticut Food Bank, on James Street in the Fair Haven section, one can suddenly see what tens of thousands of pounds of groceries look like. The people who run the food bank, which opened its doors in July 1982 to serve soup kitchens and other food- distribution services for the poor throughout the state, have come to think in terms of mass quantities.

Syria signaled President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon today that it was not prepared to consider a reconciliation until he unconditionally abrogated his 1983 accord with Israel, Lebanese opposition officials said. The officials said the whole debate over the Israeli agreement was becoming increasingly irrelevant. The only issue now, they said, is whether Mr. Gemayel stays or goes. ''The whole place is just disintegrating,'' said a former Christian Cabinet minister now in the opposition. ''Either Amin Gemayel resigns and the Moslems and Christians quickly agree on a successor, or else we are going to see another round of wide-scale fighting that will destroy what is left of the Lebanese system.''

During the last two weeks of fighting in Lebanon the Reagan Administration has witnessed the almost complete collapse of all of its policy objectives for this country. Since the marines arrived in Beirut in September 1982, President Reagan has articulated three basic American goals - the removal of all foreign forces from Lebanon, the extension of the Government's authority throughout the country and the rebuilding of the Lebanese Army. Army Has Collapsed Instead, it is the American peacekeepers who are retiring to their ships in frustration; the American-sponsored troop withdrawal agreement of last May has been torn up; the territory under the control of the central Government has now shrunk to the fence around the Presidential palace and even that is no longer secure; and the army has collapsed along religious lines after two days of serious fighting with ragtag militiamen. ''The United States is lucky that Lebanon is not that strategically important,'' Ghassan Salameh, a top Lebanese international affairs expert, said. ''If it had made the same miscalculations in dealing with a strategically important ally like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan that it did here, the destruction to American interests would have been enormous.'' If the Lebanese had serious questions about the purposes and effectiveness of United States policy, so did other friendly nations in the Middle East as well as critics at home. Even Administration officials seemed to throw up their hands in frustration, leaving the initiative, for the moment, to others.

NOT very long ago, banks were perceived as public utilities and their stocks were viewed as safe and sound investments. But that image has changed dramatically as banks, in recent years, have rushed helter-skelter into previously undreamed-of fields - and into a new banking era. The primary goal of top managers in the nation's banks is no longer to keep their heads soberly above water and to lend only to those who are virtually risk- free. Today, as the banks leap into new markets and thrash about trying to maximize profits, they are begging people to borrow larger and larger amounts at interest rates that are freer than ever before to rise and fall. There are banks today selling insurance, stocks and even cut-rate merchandise. And the industry is banging on the doors of Congress and state legislatures for freedom to plunge even further into new businesses. There are nonbanks - brokerage firms, retailers and furniture stores - fighting for a bigger piece of the consumer banking market. It's all happening in a national environment of dizzying deregulation that has transformed competition in trucking, airlines, communications - and banking. But in many minds, banking is fundamentally different from other industries that have been exposed to the cold winds of the marketplace. Deregulation of banking is potentially dangerous - not just for the institutions that might get caught up in turbulent markets for financial services, but for the nation.

THORNWOOD, N.Y. T HE gym bag that Gregory Coleman packed for what would be his final wrestling match lay on a table, his sneakers and clothes stuffed inside. There were dollar bills and some loose change that he had left on his dresser and a weekly reminder was taped to a wall beside his bed. A draw sheet with the results of a recent tournament he had won was taped to another wall. His trophies were arranged side-by-side on the window sill above the bed, forming a miniature skyline of his athletic accomplishments. It was a modest collection but he was adding to it all the time.

LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP B RONZE sundials and a plaque with the sun embossed on it are more than sidewalk decorations at six new libraries in Mercer County. They are symbolic of how the buildings are heated and lighted. The county recently completed and opened the six libraries, which were designed and built to use solar energy. It will soon open a seventh, the library system's headquarters.

Here, on the northern fringes of the inhabited world, sunrise is an occasion for a party. It is not that the people of Murmansk are particularly given to superstition or paganism. But living north of the Arctic Circle teaches them not to take the sun for granted. So, after seven weeks of darkness, the city turned out for a holiday on the last Sunday of January. Signs reading ''Zdravstvui solntse'' (Hello, sun) went up around town, stalls were raised for amateur skits, and women in folk garb went out with baskets full of oranges, apples and candies. No matter that the sun was still limited to an orange glow through the hazy horizon. Icy Wind from the South Technically, the polar night had ended a week earlier, but because of the rolling hills surrounding Murmansk, it took the sun some time to gain enough elevation to become visible. The temperature was around zero Fahrenheit. An icy wind whistled up from the south.

For a period of nine months, the Reagan Administration conducted secret discussions through an intermediary with Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, according to American participants in the effort. They said that the purpose of the talks was consistent with previous attempts by the Carter Administration to persuade the Palestinian leaders to accept the American offer of recognition of their organization in return for acceptance by the P.L.O. of Israel's right to exist. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, the talks were broken off by the P.L.O. with no certain sign that they were succeeding. The intermediary was John Edwin Mroz, a specialist on Middle Eastern and Soviet affairs, who heads a New York- based foundation. How Information Was Obtained The New York Times learned of the Mroz mission about a month ago from a person involved in the discussions. Mr. Mroz, on the record, confirmed his role in an interview with The Times. American officials involved in Mr. Mroz's mission agreed to discuss the matter with The Times so long as they were not quoted by name. In addition, a senior State Department official who was not a participant in the mission, read the record and provided some additional material. It was not possible to confirm the information directly with Mr. Arafat.

ATLANTIC CITY R EPRESENTATIVE William J. Hughes last week decried the pace of Federal and state investigations into the administration of Mayor Michael J. Matthews, saying they were ''adding more frustration to a resort already stagnated by confrontation politics and racial overtones.'' The Ocean City Democrat said in an interview that the investigations - by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Police - had ''left a cloud over the entire city.'' The investigations, apparently independent of each other, became known last Dec. 9, when F.B.I. agents raided the Mayor's office in search of evidence. The Federal agency is looking into corruption in the city government and the possibility of extortion. The state inquiry is examining a recent unsuccessful attempt by Caesars Boardwalk Regency Hotel-Casino to obtain for $100 city land valued at $500,000.

There is the chance, however slight, that the Rangers and Islanders may not meet again for another eight months. Their regular-season encounters are over now, ending in tonight's 4-3 Islander victory that came with six seconds to play when Brent Sutter tipped in a long wrist shot by Denis Potvin. If they don't meet again this season, it will mean that they did not face each other in one of the opening rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The playoffs are still six weeks away. However, anyone watching at Nassau Coliseum tonight might have thought they already had started.