What was going on when I was born?

Three Senators bent on curbing oil-industry mergers have negotiated an agreement for a common bill under which large acquisitions would be barred for six months, one of the Senators, Howard M. Metzenbaum, said today. The proposed legislation, which would declare a moratorium effective Feb. 28, would apply to any company with crude oil reserves of 100 million barrels or more, a level that would cover about the 50 biggest. It would thus block the Standard Oil Company of California's proposed $13.2 billion takeover of the Gulf Corporation and the Mobil Corporation's proposed $5.7 billion acquisition of the Superior Oil Company.

''I am very concerned about the United States and its double standard everywhere.

The Rev. Joseph A. O'Hare, who began his career as an educator and has spent the last 12 years on the Jesuit magazine America, was named yesterday to be the next president of Fordham University. Father O'Hare, who has a doctorate in philosophy from Fordham, will succeed the Rev. James C. Finlay, who will retire on June 30 as head of the Jesuit-founded university. The announcement was made at a news conference at the university by William Hughes Mulligan, a retired Federal judge who is vice chairman of the board of trustees. In reaching outside the academic world for a president, the trustees selected a man who has repeatedly won prizes from the Catholic Press Association for the column and editorials that he writes for his magazine. Since 1975, he has been the editor in chief of the magazine and president of its publishing company, America Press Inc. Earlier in his career, Father O'Hare, who is 53 years old, was on the faculty of Ateneo de Manila University, a Jesuit school in the Philippines.

An aide to Edwin Meese 3d, the Presidential counselor, has said that he cannot find a document requested by Congressional investigators, according to materials made public today by a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The missing document from Mr. Meese's 1980 Reagan campaign files consisted of a handwritten note stating: ''Roger Stone bagman for paid informant in McGovern campaign, kept his mouth shut so they can't touch him, a Congressional investigator said in a statement released today. The investigator said the note also indicated that Mr. Stone had called Mr. Meese ''on 5/ 29 and 6/4.'' Mr. Stone, identified in a Senate report as a minor figure in the Watergate scandal, when he 19 years old, was a political director for the Eastern region in the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign and is serving in a somewhat similar position in the President's current campaign.

The nation's six major auto makers reported today that sales in the March 1-10 period surged 31.5 percent from a year earlier, continuing the stronger- than-expected pace that has prevailed since December. Analysts and industry executives said the early-March figures showed that sales could be expected to remain strong for the remainder of the model year. The companies - General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, American Motors, Volkswagen of America and American Honda - said they sold 211,240 cars in the period, which had nine selling days this year and last, when they sold 160,617. The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate was 8.1 million domestic units in the period. Most analysts had expected sales in the first quarter of about 7.5 to 7.8 million domestically produced units, but an 8.3 million rate for the month of January and an 8.5 million rate in February caused some to revise their forecasts for the year and brought about some minor adjustments in production schedules by the manufacturers for the second quarter.

The number of elderly people returning from Florida to New York rose sharply during the last decade, a new analysis of Census Bureau data shows. Those returning were older, poorer and more likely to be widowed than those who moved to Florida from New York in the same decade. The findings are believed by a variety of experts to have significant implications for public-policy makers and social-service providers not only in New York and Florida but in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those states also experienced the ''countermigration'' phenomenon, according to the analysis of newly released data from the 1980 census. The research study's principal investigator, Dr. Charles F. Longino Jr., said: ''It is possible, at the age when these elderly people may have the most need for support services, that cities like New York must pay for them instead of the Sun Belt cities they moved to in the prime of their retirement years.''

An article in Business Day on Feb. 13 about travel services of the Fugazy International Corporation incorrectly reported its status at the East Side Airlines Terminal. Carey Transportation Inc. holds the exclusive franchise for bus service there.

The country's major moving companies are expected to begin slowly phasing out the price cutting and discounting that kept them rolling through the recession. The economy's improvement has meant that people are now moving nearly as often as they did four or five years ago, before the recession hit. And in their scramble to compete with one another in this newly healthy business environment, the companies say they are emphasizing customer service as much as pricing. So, for example, the Bekins Van Lines Company says it will pay its customers $100 a day for every day it is late with a shipment. And United Van Lines has what it calls a ''golden umbrella'' program that, for a small premium, replaces damaged goods at full current market value.

If Giorgio Armani's fall opening Tuesday night didn't have the same clout as his spring show six months ago, it is not really his fault. Clones of his broad-shouldered, man-tailored casual look have been appearing in almost every collection since the fall and winter showings began here over the weekend. In his last collection, he banished accessories. Now hardly a necklace or a jewel is to be seen at other houses. Having made his point so starkly and dramatically six months ago, the designer is now in the process of refining his look. He dares to add a jewel: a Maltese cross in rhinestones is pinned at the hip line. An oversized bow tie is clipped to a breast pocket, a whimsical touch.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved President Reagan's requests for urgent extra military aid for El Salvador and for Nicaraguan rebels. In votes that broke mainly along party lines, the Republican-controlled committee reversed earlier decisions and approved $93 million in emergency aid for the Salvadoran armed forces and $21 million for the Central Intelligence Agency to use to help anti-Sandinista forces. The aid requests now go before the full Senate where, with the issue of Central America seeming to grow more contentious with each legislative day, the outlook is unclear. A Warning of Shortages The Administration argued before the Appropriations Committee that the Salvadoran Government, which is battling a leftist insurgency, was in danger of running out of guns and ammunition just when its armed forces were trying to provide security for a national election. The Administration also warned that the efforts of the guerrillas opposing the leftist Nicaraguan Government would dry up without a new injection of C.I.A. aid.

North, east and west of New York, in that great wilderness known as the suburbs, man and nature often collide. It sometimes seems unthinkable that there would still be a struggle for a land so long ago tamed. And yet, as Madeline Gdowski recently discovered in this Essex County town, suburbia is indeed contested territory. Paw prints appeared on her sink and tub. Furniture was disturbed, the telephone knocked off the hook. Then one night at her bedroom door, she heard ''this breathing and sniffing and saw this black nose under the door.''

King Hussein of Jordan today ruled out direct negotiations with Israel any time soon. He said the United States, through one-sided support for Israel, had lost its credibility as a mediator in efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. The King's statements are a rejection of President Reagan's stated policy of encouraging Jordan and moderate Palestinians to enter peace negotiations with Israel. His remarks also appear to signal a repudiation, at least temporarily, by a key neighbor of Israel of American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East to broker a solution to the conflict. Reagan Defended Jordan His comments came one month after he made a cordial visit to Washington and one day after President Reagan defended Jordan before a pro-Israeli audience, (In Washington, an Administration official said King Hussein's criticism of President Reagan's policies would probably discourage new American initiatives in the Middle East for some time.''If a committee had set out to devise the worst possible timing for such a statement, it could not have done better,'' the official said. Page A11.) In an interview the King said: ''We see things this way: Israel is on our land. It is there by virtue of American military assistance and economic aid that translates into aid for Israeli settlements. Israel is there by virtue of American moral and political support to the point where the United States is succumbing to Israeli dictates.