What was going on when I was born?

The Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island plans to ship used radioactive fuel on flatbed trucks through New York City in the next several weeks, city officials said yesterday. The city has objected to such shipments on the ground that an accident in New York could subject the densely populated city to peril from radioactivity. The Federal Government has contended, however, that the safeguards for transporting the waste were sufficient and that shipment over interstate highways would reduce any potential exposure to the material. According to the city's Department of Environmental Protection, the proposed route through the city would be the Long Island Expressway to the Clearview Expressway in Queens, over the Throgs Neck Bridge to Interstate 95, then following I-95 through the Bronx.

''In my judgment, it was a good meeting, a healthy meeting.

Federal researchers announced today that they had found a virus that they believe is the cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. They called it HTLV-3 and said they had developed a process to mass-produce it for the purpose of developing the tools needed to finally conquer the mysterious disease that has afflicted more than 4,000 Americans. The announcement follows the attention recently given to the discovery of a virus called LAV by researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The head of the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said over the weekend that he believed the LAV virus was the cause of AIDS. Margaret M. Heckler, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said today that she thought the two viruses ''will prove to be the same.''

The Standard Oil Company of California is nearing final agreement with the Federal Trade Commission on selling various properties so that its $13.2 billion acquisition of the Gulf Corporation can be approved later this week, Socal officials said today. The properties include 4,000 Gulf service stations in six Southeastern states, unspecified terminals, interests in one or more pipelines and either Gulf's refinery in Port Arthur, Tex., or the one in Alliance, La. The proposed merger, which would be the biggest ever, is to be considered and acted upon at a closed commission meeting scheduled for Thursday morning.

J. David Dominelli, the fugitive currency dealer, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the Caribbean island of Montserrat that the problems that led to his investment company's bankruptcy began when he tried to establish a trust company in Switzerland to trade in foreign currencies. Mr. Dominelli also contended that he had ''some large investors'' who would either redeposit or leave $40 million to $50 million in his investment company. The money would be used to repay investors, Mr. Dominelli said. He declined to be more specific.

A Washington dispatch by United Press International on Saturday, reporting a television interview with Alexander M. Haig Jr., misidentified the network. The interview took place Friday on ''The CBS Morning News.''

For a combined 175 years, the four women had walked the creaking wooden floors together, selling notions and lingerie, keeping the books and watching generations of customers progress from ''infant and toddlers'' to ''preteen'' and ''prep'' to ''ready-to-wear.'' But when the women, Lillian Williams, Hazel King, Doris Robitaille and Toni LaPointe, returned for a recent visit to Bugbee's Department Store here, they needed a key to get inside. On the main floor, once crammed with clothing of all sizes and descriptions, only a few dismembered mannequins remained. Bugbee's, for nearly a century a fixture in this small northeastern Connecticut mill town, had closed its doors.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson agreed today to work toward avoiding a confrontation at the Democratic National Convention in exchange for a promise by the party's national chairman to consider some of Mr. Jackson's demands on party rules. Mr. Jackson has contended, among other things, that existing rules have left him with an unfairly small number of delegates to date and that party rules in some states discriminate against candidates who are members of minority groups. The accord between Mr. Jackson and Charles T. Manatt, chairman of the Democratic National Committee , was announced after the two met privately for one hour at the committee's headquarters here. Negotiations Had Collapsed At a news conference after the meeting Mr. Manatt said he had ''the specific, unqualified statement of Reverend Jackson that there will be no walkout at our convention this summmer on the part of Reverend Jackson or his supporters.''

A HIGH SCHOOL principal in Queens, exasperated by an English teacher who for several years has been the object of complaints by students and their parents, has met with the teacher repeatedly in recent months, trying to persuade her to give up tenure and seek some other kind of work. This approach, using forced resignations to deal with teacher incompetence, seems to be happening more often than is generally realized, experts maintain. But because so few teachers are removed through the formal process, the public remains unconvinced that the schools are dealing with incompetence, a problem that perennially ranks high in the Gallup Poll. The challenge of ridding the schools of incompetent tenured teachers has long confounded administrators and board members. They say the legal process is so arduous that it is often more practical to get inept teachers to leave voluntarily than to file and document formal charges against them.

Apple Computer Inc. is introducing the portable version of its successful Apple II family of computers Tuesday - the portable IIc - before 3,500 dealers in an elaborate, daylong extravaganza in San Francisco. It is no routine event. The flourishes and razzle-dazzle at Moscone Center, including dinner music by the jazz artist Herbie Hancock, were orchestrated by Apple's president and chief executive, John Sculley. It also signals the wind-up of a yearlong dash by the company, beginning with Mr. Sculley's arrival last May 3, to convince the investment community and consumers generally that Apple can be an effective competitor against the industry's aggressive giant, the International Business Machines Corporation.

An article in Metropolitan Report on Saturday about the attempt to demolish three town houses on the Upper West Side misidentified their designer. He was C. P. H. Gilbert.

Two months ago, when the Sumitomo Bank agreed to buy more than 52 percent of the voting shares in the Gotthard Bank of Switzerland, it was breaking new ground for the traditionally cautious Japanese banking establishment. Although banks in this country have made hefty acquisitions in the United States, Sumitomo's bold move was the first sizable purchase by a Japanese concern of a European bank. Banking in Japan, impelled by lagging growth in traditional fields and a steady easing of Government regulation, is undergoing a kind of slow-motion version of America's financial revolution. And Sumitomo, Japan's third-largest bank, is setting the pace, bankers and analysts agree.