What was going on when I was born?

When 74-year-old Joan Howitt broke a hip last winter, the fear of not knowing where she would live when she left the hospital almost broke her spirit. Mary Beaman, 72, said the stillness of her rambling house, near Sackett Lake, where she has lived for 50 years, began to grate on her last January. Now the two women are living together, sharing Mrs. Beaman's house, thanks to a match made by a Sullivan County project for the elderly. Having a companion, Mrs. Beaman said, ''gave new life to the old house.'' Like Mrs. Howitt and Mrs. Beaman, a growing number of elderly people in the New York metropolitan area and nationwide are sharing homes - to save money, stave off loneliness and avoid going to a nursing home, according to social workers and other authorities on the problems of the aging.

With a daring that successfully challenged the finest female distance runners in the world and an ease that surprised even herself, Joan Benoit took a calculated risk, ran away from the field after passing the three-mile mark, and won the first Olympic marathon for women this morning. Miss Benoit finished in 2 hours 24 minutes and 52 seconds, about 430 meters ahead of Grete Waitz of Norway, the world champion who had never before lost a marathon she had finished. Their emergence from the dark tunnel into the sunlight of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum began a series of celebrations at the end of the 26-mile, 385-yard course, the first women's Olympic race longer than 1,500 meters. Later at the Coliseum, Edwin Moses of Laguna Hills, Calif., won the gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles, his 105th consecutive victory in the event. (Page C1).

On the basis of all they have said in the election campaign about taxes and spending, neither President Reagan nor Walter F. Mondale would significantly reduce the Government's record budget deficits, according to many of the nation's leading economic forecasters. The economists, weighing both candidates' statements against underlying trends in the economy and the political attitudes in Congress, predict that annual deficits would remain at the stubbornly high $200 billion level through the 1980's. ''Essentially, we think there would be little significant impact on the deficits, regardless of the outcome of the election,'' said M. Kathryn Eickhoff, executive vice president of Townsend- Greenspan, a New York forecasting firm. A Dominant Campaign Issue Robert Gough, senior vice president of Data Resources Inc. in Lexington, Mass., said the ''only major impact'' of Mr. Mondale's proposals ''is that you would prevent it from getting much worse.'' To most economists, the current budget deficits, triple those of any previous Administration, have become the greatest menace to the economy since the surging oil prices of the 1970's. Now the deficits, and whether to raise taxes to bring them down, have become the dominant economic issue of the Presidential campaign.

Like hundreds of portfolio managers in charge of big pools of money, Andrew Furtak of the $1.3 billion IDS Stock Fund heard the rumble of a market rally last week and sprung into action. Suddenly, caught up in a roaring, get-there-first stampede of investors, he was ordering tens of millions of dollars worth of stock in such issues as International Business Machines, General Electric, Motorola and Texas Instruments. Wall Street had never seen anything like it. Record volume on Thursday and Friday of last week led to the best weekly price advance in history. Asking the Same Question Investors everywhere were asking the same question: ''Is this 1982 all over again?'' The market took off in August 1982, setting record volume with unrelenting momentum that took the Dow Jones industrial average up about 50 percent over the ensuing five months.

LOS ANGELESFirst there were gasps, then there were cheers, and later there were questions, hard questions. The first women's Olympic marathon in history was turning into a controversy over an issue that could have been a matter of life and death. The gasps began after Joan Benoit loped into the Coliseum, easily winning the 26-mile, 385-yard race that Olympic officials had never allowed women to run before. The crowd saluted Miss Benoit, but later it gasped for Gabriela Andersen-Schiess.

Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader, was asked today to form a new government of Israel. Mr. Peres received the mandate from President Chaim Herzog nearly two weeks after national elections that left both the Labor Party and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud bloc without a parliamentary majority. Standing in bright sunshine outside the President's residence, Mr. Peres said he would seek ''as broad a government as possible, a government of national unity, which will bridge the rifts that have been discovered in the ground of our existence.'' Meeting With Shamir ''Mr. Shamir told me he would cooperate in forming such a government,'' Mr. Peres said, in response to questions, adding that the two political leaders were discussing whether the first meeting should ''be between the two of us with our delegations.''

The economy's growth rate continued to moderate in July, the National Association of Purchasing Management said yesterday. The group's latest survey of 250 purchasing managers at the nation's largest corporations indicated that new orders and production levels increased at their lowest rate in 18 months. Inventory growth was also modest, the survey found. The results were partly affected by summer shutdowns at factories.

Richard Burton, a Welsh coal miner's son whose celebrity was defined as much by his rakish personal life as his remarkable acting skills, died of a cerebral hemorrhage yesterday in Switzerland. He was 58 years old. His family said the British actor, staying at his villa in the village of Celigny outside Geneva, complained of feeling ill in the morning. He died late in the afternoon at a Geneva hospital. His wife, Sally Hay, was with him when he died. The death stunned the actor's family and friends, who reported that he had been looking tan and healthy and feeling sanguine about his busy work schedule.

Today was one of those lovely days for American track and field in the Games of the XXIII Olympiad. In the morning, Joan Benoit of Freeport, Me., won the gold medal in the first-ever Olympic marathon for women. In the evening, Evelyn Ashford of Los Angeles won the gold medal in the women's 100-meter dash. Twenty minutes later, Edwin Moses of Laguna Hills, Calif., won the gold medal in the men's 400-meter hurdles, as he did in Montreal eight years before. Miss Benoit ran away from the marathon field early and beat Grete Waitz of Norway by a little more than a quarter-mile in 2 hours 24 minutes 52 seconds. Miss Ashford beat Alice Brown of Altadena, Calif., by 5 feet in 10.97 seconds, an Olympic record. Moses defeated 18- year-old Danny Harris of Perris, Calif., by 3 meters in 47.75 seconds.

Long-term bond yields have fallen sharply in the last two months but, for the decline to continue much further, some analysts say that short-term interest rates must fall, too. In the euphoria of the recent rally, where heavy buying by major institutions pushed 30-year Treasury bond prices up by roughly 10 points, or $100 per $1,000 bond, since late May, the market willingly overlooked the pattern of stable to higher short-term interest rates. ''The market has been dominated by the big-picture developments like lower inflation and slower economic growth, not the Federal funds rate,'' said Elliott Platt, a money market economist at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities. Rise in Federal Funds Rate The overnight rate for bank loans in the Federal funds market averaged 11.53 percent in the week ended last Wednesday, up from about 11 1/4 percent in previous weeks and about 10.3 percent in May.

MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1984 The Economy Growth eased in July for the third consecutive month, according to purchasing managers. While new orders and output continued to gain, the pace slowed, indicating a slight cooling of the economy to a more sustainable level. (Page D1.)

At Town Pizza, a regular slice with a soda costs $1.75, and a slice with eggplant is $1.85. Eating them outside the pizzeria can cost $25 more. When two teen-agers were jailed last month after being charged with eating pizza on the street outside this little restaurant, the case renewed a longstanding debate over the spirit and practicality of a village ordinance that prohibits eating or drinking almost anything on public walks and beaches. ''If they want to stop garbage, let them put out trash cans and fine litterers,'' said Carol Clark, whose son, John, and his friend Gary Kumpa are the village's most celebrated defendants since the Great Cookie Monster was arrested seven years ago.