What was going on when I was born?

THE felicitous ease of Fairfield Porter's canvases cause many viewers trouble. ''Are they modern enough? Too French? Too pleasant? Hasn't this been done before?'' are questions that - the critic John Ashbery amusingly suggests - people guiltily raise while succumbing to their charms. Art, as we all know, must be difficult, intellectually challenging, and not, well, immediately accessible. On these counts, the Porter works flunk, as is readily apparent in ''Fairfield Porter,'' the first major retrospective of this influential realist (1907-75), at the Whitney Museum, Madison Avenue, at 75th Street (through Aug. 19). Yet these fresh, light-struck landscapes, intimate interiors, informal portraits and homey still lifes - made during and after the heyday of Abstract Expressionism - are certainly among the finest realist paintings produced in the United States since the end of World War II. Porter's work didn't lack for exposure during his late-blooming career, but viewed in this unprecedented depth (more than 70 canvases) and in light of the painterly realism that holds sway today, its presence takes on new authority. As with many figurative painters, his work got looser, even more ''abstract,'' toward the end of his life, - but it never abandoned what Porter called the ''visualness'' that was its basis.

When Gary P. Spoleta, the president of Shoney's Inc., visited one of his company's restaurants in Kansas City, Mo., three years ago, he was upset by what he saw. A flood of conventiongoers at lunchtime overwhelmed the coffee shop's staff, and a line of customers waiting for tables extended out the door. To help out, Mr. Spoleta started washing dishes and had the two regular dishwashers clear tables. A local Shoney's executive took over as host, and the hostess waited on customers. Three hours later, the operation was back to normal.

The 10th summit conference of the seven major industrialized democracies opened in London in a mood of modest expectation generated by repeated official warnings that neither bold policy initiatives nor ''magical solutions'' were likely to be achieved. (Page A1, Column 6.) Violence erupted in Indian cities arising from the Indian Army's attack Wednesday on the Sikh shrine in Amritsar and the death of more nearly 400 people, including a radical Sikh leader. The army occupied the Golden Temple in an attempt to end Sikh terrorism. (A1:5.)

HOMESPUN but eloquent pop, earthy blues, precise close harmony singing, post-Beat satire and surreal folk music are all in New York's clubs this weekend for people in search of quality cabaret. At Freddy's Supper Club, 308 East 49th Street, the pop singer and songwriter Bonnie Koloc is playing her first club engagement since appearing on Broadway in ''The Human Comedy.'' Miss Koloc won a Drama Desk nomination for best supporting actress in a musical and a Theater World award as one of the most promising newcomers on Broadway for her portrayal of Mrs. Macauley, a woman who loses both a husband and a son in war. The singer's success with the role - her first dramatic part since high school - suggested that she might be able to carve a future for herself in musical theater. It was a welcome boost for the Iowa-born Miss Koloc, who has made seven albums without having a hit. She is a popular star in Chicago, who made the move to New York just over two years ago. ''I decided it was put up or shut up,'' she said the other day about her move east.

Welpro Inc. of Seabrook, N.H., a 50-year-old maker of women's dress shoes, will cease operating July 1, Stanley Barr, president and son of the company's founder, told the 250 employees at noon today. Mr. Barr said the decision was made in response to Wednesday's decision by the United States International Trade Commission not to give tariff protection to American shoe manufacturers. He said he and his brother were going to go out of business ''before we run out of cash'' to meet the payroll. Another response to the I.T.C.'s 5-to-0 ruling that imports of cheaper shoes do not represent ''a serious'' threat to the domestic shoe industry came from Henry Clayman, president of P. Clayman & Sons Inc. of Salem, Mass., which says it supplies 50 percent of the innersoles used by the naton's domestic shoe manufacturers. The ruling ''defies logic,'' he said.

Friday GUGGENHEIM SKYDANCE Abstract sculptures will be on the move in the Guggenheim Museum tonight through Sunday at 9 as dancers perform on the spiral ramp - around an audience also on the ramp. The occasion will be ''SkyDance/SkyTime,'' a multimedia event created for the building's architecture and acoustics. Held by ropes, Otto Piene's inflated nylon sculptures will be integrated with the choreography of Elaine Summers and the music of Carman Moore. Musicians will play on the ground floor, and time-lapse film of the sky will be seen on the wall. The museum is on Fifth Avenue, between 88th and 89th Streets. Tickets: $10 ($7.50 for students). Information: 360-3500. THE ROSES OF BROOKLYN ''Peace'' can be found at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden today, along with ''Intrigue'' - two of 900 varieties of roses, more than 5,000 bushes in all - now in full and fragrant bloom as the Cranford Rose Garden opens for the season (weekdays, 9 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., weekends and holidays, 10:30 to 4:30). From 10 to 5 on Sunday, art for sale will be hung on the fence overlooking the Rose Garden and Cherry Esplanade (rain date: July 1). Information: 622-4433.

The victims were 10,000 office workers, confronted by the prospect of life without air- conditioning in one of Wall Street's tallest towers. The culprit, authorities said yesterday, was a disgruntled maintenance engineer. The heroes were a team of police scuba divers, who plunged into a 37th-floor water tank and retrieved several large chunks of the tower's central air-conditioning system. After weeks out of commission, the air-conditioning was back on again in time to spare the building yesterday's 92-degree heat.

A month ago, the employees of the First National Bank of Rushford watched as a Federal official pulled down the bank's window shade and tacked up a notice telling customers that the 82- year-old bank was closed for good. That evening Arne and Adeline Agrimson drove into town from their dairy farm to deposit checks from the sale of milk and cattle. First they passed the drive-in window. It was closed. Then they tried the night depository box. A sign read ''Out of Order.'' Finally they walked into the Niggle Cafe across the street. ''It was jammed in there with people,'' Mr. Agrimson said. ''The fish was gone. The chicken was gone. The story was going around that savings accounts were O.K. but checking accounts were gone.''

Fourteen city electrical inspectors and supervisors and 18 electrical contractors were accused yesterday by the Federal Government of taking part in ''a widespread and systematic pattern of corruption'' in the inspection of buildings throughout the city. Mayor Koch said at a City Hall news conference that a 14-month undercover operation had resulted in the arrests of more than half the employees of the 26- member Bureau of Electrical Control, the city agency that inspects and approves all electrical installations. Those arrested on bribery charges included the bureau's borough managers for Brooklyn and Staten Island. The city employees were arrested Wednesday afternoon and the contractors were arrested yesterday morning.

The following article is based on reporting by Jeff Gerth and Philip Taubman and was written by Mr. Gerth. WASHINGTON, June 7 - The Defense Department has created several secret commando units in recent years, and they have tried to rescue missing Americans in danger spots abroad, participated in the invasion of Grenada and supported Central Intelligence Agency covert operations in Central America, according to Administration officials and members of Congress. The development of the elite units, which has extended the military's traditional concept of special forces, has raised concern in Congress, some lawmakers say. They say the worry is that the units might become a uniformed version of the Central Intelligence Agency and be used to circumvent Congressional restrictions and reporting requirements on intelligence activities and the use of American forces in combat operations. Official Says There Is No Risk But a senior intelligence official denied that such a risk existed. He said that although the new special operations forces constituted a resource for intelligence operations, any such use of them would be directed by the C.I.A. and properly reported to Congress.

On the evening of March 4, five nights after Walter F. Mondale lost the Presidential primary in New Hampshire, the former Vice President sat in a Boston hotel suite and heard that Gary Hart had unexpectedly won the Maine Democratic caucuses. A shaken Mr. Mondale confessed to aides that the race for the nomination might be over, and some of his associates drifted back to their rooms and wept. The following morning (''It was tough getting up,'' Mr. Mondale recalls), the candidate decided on an admittedly frantic, often improvised, strategy that was ultimately to reverse the tide. The keynote was to make Senator Hart the dominant issue, to attack the Coloradan's commitment to traditional Democratic values, to plant doubts about his ''experience'' and ''steadiness'' and ''sure-footedness.'' From that decision, over three months of trench warfare that culminated in Tuesday's victory in New Jersey and Wednesday's assertion that he had the needed majority of delegate votes, Mr. Mondale successfully revived what many saw as a crippled campaign.

John S. R. Shad, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, warned last night that there was a prospect of more corporate bankruptcies because of the rising tide of leveraged takeovers and buyouts. ''The leveraging up of American enterprise,'' he said in a speech prepared for delivery before the New York Financial Writers Association, ''will magnify the adverse consequences of the next recession or significant rise in interest rates.'' In a leveraged buyout or takeover, loans are used to finance most of the purchase price. A company is considered highly leveraged when debt far outweighs equity as a percentage of its total capitalization, and most of its cash flow is used to cover debt service.