What was going on when I was born?

A chart on in Business Day yesterday with an article about telephone companies' shares gave an incorrect Friday closing price for Bell Atlantic stock.

Joseph J. Sanchez is in an unusual position for an American automobile executive these days. While most of his colleagues have to justify what went wrong with the domestic auto industry, the manager of Oldsmobile is busy explaining why things are so good. Last year the Oldsmobile division of the General Motors Corporation sold 1,007,559 cars and accounted for 11 percent of the total automobile market. Ten years ago, the division held just a 5.9 percent share of the market, but it has climbed steadily since then.

Emergency arms aid for El Salvador in advance of Congressional approval is being seriously considered by the Reagan Administration, according to Secretary of State George P. Shultz. (Page A1, Column 6.) Nicaraguan elections on Nov. 4 were scheduled by the Government. The date, which is earlier than Managua previously announced, is two days before the United States Presidential election. (A3:4-6.)

The interest-rate malaise oppressing Wall Street deepened yesterday as stock prices fell sharply in slow post-holiday trading. The Dow Jones industrial average, which was up slightly in early trading, closed off 9.53 points, to 1,139.34, its lowest finish since April 8, 1983, when it had ended at 1,124.71. In the last six weeks, the indicator has tumbled 137.77 points, or 10.7 percent, primarily on fears that the large Federal budget deficits will push interest rates higher. In addition, recent Government reports showing strong economic growth have also weakened hopes for imminent declines in rates.

Poor patients without Medicaid coverage will now be billed at city-run hospitals based on what they can afford, no matter how high their charges actually are, city officials said yesterday. An uninsured patient who runs up a hospital bill amounting to thousands of dollars could end up paying as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the Health and Hospitals Corporation, the agency that runs New York City's municipal hospitals. The plan would also permit the patients to pay in small monthly installments. The program, which takes effect immediately, was announced by John J. McLaughlin, the hospital corporation's acting president. He said it was intended to increase revenue for the hospitals and to preserve the dignity of the patients by sparing them pursuit by collection agencies hired by the city.

The Marine contingent in Beirut today formally started its pullback to United States Sixth Fleet vessels offshore. About 150 combat marines from the 22d Marine Amphibious Unit, the heart of the American contingent in the multinational force, left today, according to Marine sources. About 1,100 marines were still onshore, virtually all of them combat troops stationed in the line companies surrounding the Marines' six-square-mile airport compound. In Washington, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the movement of the marines from the Beirut airport to the Navy ships should be completed within the next two weeks. He said the exact number of marines who would remain in Lebanon had not been decided. (Page A8.)

It was called Arf 'n' Arf - a soft drink for dogs that was sold in six-packs. And when its makers wanted to see if the world was ready for it, they turned to Syracuse. For in an age of commercials and commercialism, Syracuse is that most important of places - the test-market city. Since 1980, about a hundred products have been test marketed here - everything from Brown Cow Yogurt and Extra Milk Kielbasa (''less spicy than regular kielbasa'') to Hopfenperle beer and Polar B'ars (''vanilla ice- cream bars with chocolate topping'').

For more than three years, 106.7 on the FM dial in New York was WKHK, one of the city's two stations featuring country-and-western music - a sound it illustrated by showing cowboy boots in place of K's as its call letters. But late last month, WKHK became WLTW. The LT stands for light music, and that is what - to the initial consternation of WKHK's nearly eight million listeners and the anxious hopes of the station's owners - is now playing on 106.7. WKHK made the change after a survey confirmed a hunch that the prospects for country radio in the city were limited. WKHK and WHN, New York's other country station, have had more listeners than any other country-and-western station in the United States, but they still ranked 20th and 21st, respectively, of the 40 major commercial stations in the New York area last autumn. ''It's like making the best orangeade in town, but everyone wants to drink apple juice,'' said George Wolfson, the general manager of WKHK and now of the new WLTW.

The Charter Company announced yesterday that it would spin off its insurance subsidiary to stockholders in an attempt to reduce investor confusion about its two businesses. The parent company will take the name of a subsidiary, the Charter Oil Company. Stockholders will receive a tax-free distribution of the common shares of what is now the insurance subsidiary, which will become the Charter Financial Company. The same management will continue to run both companies, which Charter officials said should make the spinoff palatable to insurance regulators in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana, who oversee Charter's insurance business.

Israeli planes bombed targets in the mountains east of Beirut today, and Israeli officials announced that a patrol of armored vehicles had advanced nearly half the distance from the Israeli line to the capital before withdrawing. Israeli officials indicated that the patrol had been undertaken between Monday night and today. The Israeli military action came amid signs that President Amin Gemayel was seriously considering another proposal for a political settlement of the crisis here and that it would include scrapping of the May 17 peace accord between his country and Israel, as a previous plan did. Key Christians Oppose Move Mr. Gemayel has been under increasing pressure from Syria and Syrian-backed opposition groups in Lebanon to break the agreement. Today, however, key pro-Israeli Christian leaders said they would oppose any move to abrogate the accord, further complicating Mr. Gemayel's delicate political position. The air attacks came at about 10:30 A.M. Ten Israeli fighter jets struck at sites in the Shuf Mountains while other planes circled above them. Syrian antiaircraft guns fired on the bombers, but Israel's Defense Ministry said all planes returned safely. Beirut radio stations said the Israelis hit sites at Bhamdun and the nearby towns of Ain al Jadida, Bikh Shtay and Mansuriya.

A Jerusalem dispatch Jan. 25 on the visit of Chancellor Helmut Kohl to the Yad Vashem memorial carried an inappropriate translation of a biblical quotation he inscribed in German in the register. As it appears in the standard German Bible - rather than the King James Version - it should have read, ''Even thus, He draws thee out of the jaws of anguish, and sets thee in a comfortable place where there is no further oppression.''

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that the Reagan Administration is considering giving El Salvador emergency military aid, without waiting for Congress to act, so its army can maintain pressure on the insurgents in the coming election period. In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee dominated by questions about Central American policy, Mr. Shultz often raised his voice against senators who sought to discredit the Administration's actions in El Salvador. He denied assertions that the Salvadoran Government had ''lost the hearts and minds of its people'' and said news articles suggesting gross corruption in the use of American aid in Central America were ''highly exaggerated.'' ''In any spending program, even in the United States, not everything is perfect,'' he told Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, the chairman, in response to a question raised by articles in The New York Times and elsewhere about reports of mismanagement in the use of American aid in Central America. ''On the whole, the money is spent well, administered carefully.''