What was going on when I was born?

An article in Metropolitan Report on Aug. 8 about the resignation of Gail M. Kong as head of the city's Office of Special Services for Children included an inaccurate description of her educational background provided by Mayor Koch's press office. She attended the Hunter College School of Social Work for a year but did not earn a master's degree.

''It's hard to explain this. We've pulled the country together somehow.''

Minesweeping forces from the United States, Britain and France crossed the Suez Canal and made ready to search the Gulf of Suez for explosives that have damaged commercial shipping. Meanwhile, Egyptian officials made public new information that further appeared to implicate Libya in the planting of mines in Red Sea waters. (Page A8, Column 1.) President Reagan's quip about outlawing and bombing Russia became the subject of heightened official reaction in the Soviet Union. The Government said that Mr. Reagan's inadvertently taped remark before a radio broadcast Saturday was ''unprecedentedly hostile'' and ''dangerous for the cause of peace.'' (A5:1-3.)

There must be ghosts here, singing in the hills and swimming naked in Fillipini Pond. Down on the alfalfa field that Max Yasgur used to own, they gather every day, 400,000 strong. They park their cars in the middle of the road, eat peanut butter and jelly for dinner, smoke cannabis for dessert. Yes, there must be ghosts here, those that frighten and those that cheer. Why else would so many people still be both angry and amazed? Fifteen years ago this week, as the miasma of Vietnam worsened, legions of the young made their way to this Sullivan County hamlet for a music festival billed by its promoters as ''three days of peace and love.''

Production at the nation's factories, mines and utilities rose by a strong nine-tenths of 1 percent in July, the Federal Reserve Board reported yesterday. The hefty July increase in industrial output - the 20th consecutive monthly rise - was larger than many economists had expected. The July increase matched the June gain, which had been revised upward from the rise of five-tenths of 1 percent first reported. ''The industrial production figures mean that the economy hasn't fallen asleep as far as manufacturers are concerned,'' said Roger E. Brinner, chief economist for Data Resources. ''The numbers are significant because they indicate that businessmen are still quite confident about the recovery.''

THERE has only rarely been a great deal of luxury in the Manhattan luxury apartment - most apartment dwellers make compromises that anyone seeing their rent or maintenance bills could hardly believe. Could there really be such a thing as a million-dollar cooperative apartment without a single window with direct sunlight, or a $5,000-a-month rental with no room to eat in the kitchen? The answer is yes, there are plenty of these, and worse. But there are also signs of change: a number of new buildings, while hardly runaway successes, at least represent a degree of architectural ambition An Appraisal that the Manhattan luxury apartment market has not seen in some years. True luxury has always been a rare commodity in Manhattan. Even in the 1920's, the decade that produced surely some of the best apartment buildings ever built, there were enough bad apartments put up to inspire Lewis Mumford to write a remarkable essay entitled ''The Plight of the Prosperous,'' in which he bemoaned the fact that the rich living on Park Avenue did not get what he considered basic entitlements of fresh air and sunshine.

The State Public Service Commission today approved a 9.6 percent rate increase for the Long Island Lighting Company's electricity customers to help save the utility from bankruptcy. ''We believe it is not in the public interest for this company to lose its financial viability,'' said the commission's chairman, Paul L. Gioia. The increase will take effect Sept. 1. It will add $6.90 a month to the bill of the average customer, who now pays about $72 a month for electricity.

J. B. Priestley, the British novelist and playwright who attempted to describe the English personality through character portraits, often with sharp and humorous political overtones, died Tuesday at his home in Stratford- on-Avon. He was 89 years old. According to his British publishers, Heinemann, the author had been ill for only a few days and died peacefully. Priestley, who was adorned with honors and royalties, considered himself a writer with something to say and a desire to say it frankly - even if he irritated some of his countrymen. Wrote for Wide Audience The novelist, playwright and essayist, whose more than 100 books and plays were known throughout the English-speaking world, also thought of himself ''as 18th-century, when writers wrote steadily and professionally.''

The Federal Aviation Administration said today that it was ready to enforce temporary limits on operations at six of the nation's busiest airports if the airlines were unable to reduce delays caused by air traffic congestion. At a closed meeting here with about 60 aviation and airline executives, Vice Adm. Donald D. Engen, head of the aviation agency, said the F.A.A. regarded putting such rules into effect as ''a last and least desirable result.'' But he said that if the airlines were unable to ease the congestion that is producing record numbers of flight delays, the agency was prepared to seek limits on the number of takeoffs and landings in peak operating periods at Kennedy International, La Guardia and Newark in the New York City area, O'Hare in Chicago, Hartsfield in Atlanta and Stapleton in Denver.

The following article is based on reporting by Ralph Blumenthal and Jeff Gerth and was written by Mr. Gerth. Although Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro, the Democratic Vice- Presidential candidate, has maintained a career of her own as a lawyer and member of Congress, public records show that she has often been closely involved with her husband's real estate business and his finances. Mrs. Ferraro has practiced law and conducted her Congressional campaigns from the offices of a real estate company owned by her husband, John A. Zaccaro. Records show she has also been an officer and stockholder of the company and participated in dealings of at least three other corporations controlled by her husband. On the other hand, for the last several years Mrs. Ferraro and Mr. Zaccaro have taken some unusual and probably costly steps to keep their finances separate. They filed separate tax returns rather than joint ones, for example, a rare action that tax experts say almost always results in higher overall taxes for the two parties.

A report in the Common Stock column of Business Day on Tuesday incorrectly described an exchange offer by Automated Medical Laboratories Inc. for the common stock of Viragen Inc., a subsidiary. The offer is being made on the basis of one common share of Automated for one common share of Viragen and an additional 75 cents a share to be paid to Automated by the tendering Viragen shareholders.

A medical team has helped save two severely burned young brothers by taking tiny patches of skin from their bodies, growing the patches into large sheets and grafting them back over the burns. Researchers say the new technique, in which such skin patches are induced to grow first in test tubes and later on large strips of gauze in a laboratory, could represent a major advance in the treatment of extensive burns, which are among the most painful, costly and difficult to treat of all health problems. About 100,000 burn patients are admitted to hospitals in this country each year, and about 15 percent of that total have extensive burns. The test-tube skin might also be used in treating some babies with severe birth defects, some patients with cancer and some accident victims. Over 50% of Skin Replaced Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital who developed the treatment said at a news conference here today that they had used it to replace more than half the skin area of each of the young brothers, who were burned over 97 percent of their bodies.