What was going on when I was born?

A report in the Finance/New Issues column of Business Day on Tuesday misidentified the parent company of Robert Bruce Industries. It is Savoy Industries.

Wylie Boyle sent his housekeeper on ahead to the post office that wintry Saturday morning in Paducah, Tex., early this year. Then, as he had every day, the 86-year-old retired insurance salesman went to visit his wife, Avis, at Richards Memorial Hospital. Mrs. Boyle suffered from Alzheimer's disease, a progressive, irreversible deterioration of the brain that, over time, can turn simple chores into impossible ones and loved ones into strangers. At times in church the 84-year-old Mrs. Boyle would start talking loudly in the middle of the sermon. At home, in front of others, she would harshly criticize her husband for faults that only she saw. That morning a nurse, Bobby Chaney, heard a strange sound when she passed by the hospital room, as if an oxygen tank had overturned. She pushed open the door. And there was Mrs. Boyle in bed, a small red stain growing larger on the front of her nightgown.

The new leaders of Walt Disney Productions, Michael D. Eisner and Frank G. Wells, said today that they were given a mandate by the company's directors to put the struggling Disney studios on an equal footing with the biggest and best of Hollywood's film companies. ''We want to build the entertainment group back to being as strong as the non-entertainment group'' at Disney, Mr. Eisner said in an interview. ''This is going to be a full-service entertainment company, with a regular stream of products.'' Disney formally announced today that Mr. Eisner was elected chairman and chief executive, and Mr. Wells, president and chief operating officer, by a unanimous board vote.

In the upper reaches of Shea Stadium yesterday, the banners that tally Dwight Gooden's strikeouts rippled in the breeze for the last time this season. The brilliant rookie did not accommodate those who are only satisfied by double digits, but otherwise his last 1984 appearance in New York was a fitting finale. Despite a head cold that weakened Gooden, slowed his fastball and forced his removal after eight innings, the 19-year-old pitcher beat the Montreal Expos, 6-1, and lifted his record to 17-9. He struck out nine batters to bring his season total to 276, best in the major leagues by a wide margin. He also singled twice, scored a run and held runners on base more successfully than he has all season, with Andre Dawson picked off in the first inning and caught stealing in the sixth.

A picture caption in the Metropolitan Report Tuesday about kosher cheese for the needy incorrectly identified the site where the cheese was being distributed by the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty. It was the United Jewish Council/Bialystoker Houses on the Lower East Side.

The Jets continued to prove today that they can beat mediocre clubs in an age of parity, which means they may be much better than they appeared to be at the season's start. They produced a fine, exciting and exhausting 28-26 victory over the Buffalo Bills, with more than the usual number of dramas being played out. The key to the offense was the ability of Pat Ryan and Wesley Walker to hook up deep for the first time this season. Ryan, who was always a backup before this season, continued to show increasing command of the starting job. He tossed three touchdown passes to Walker, the receiver who missed all of training camp as a holdout, as the Jets increased their record to 3-1.

Nicaraguan Government leaders said over the weekend that they would not postpone national elections scheduled for Nov. 4 despite pressure from opposition parties and the Reagan Administration. ''The 4th of November will be the date for the election, and there will be no postponement,'' Victor Tirado, one of the nine Sandinista commanders who govern Nicaragua, said in a speech Saturday night. Editorials in pro-Government newspapers said that after the Sandinista decision Friday to sign a draft peace treaty with other Central American countries, it was up to the United States to show its willingness to end the conflict in the region. U.S. Officials Charge Hypocrisy Nicaraguan opposition figures, however, said there could be no peace until the Government changed its election laws and moved the date of the election to allow a new campaign. They rejected the Sandinista proposal that they reconsider their refusal to take part in the campaign and said they would not register their presidential candidate, Arturo Jose Cruz, before the new deadline of Sept. 30.

The pace of the current economic expansion clearly slowed in the third quarter, but after sifting through the latest data a number of analysts are suggesting that the period of deceleration was short-lived. Rather than continuing to moderate between now and year-end - as projected by many governmental and private economists - the rate of economic growth, some analysts now predict, will increase instead. In their interpretation, these economists tend to play down recent Government reports as well as activity in the credit markets that suggest softening conditions. Rather, they focus on renewed vigor in consumer spending, on the positive aspects of speedy resolution of labor negotiations with the automobile and coal workers and on a stabilization and possible improvement in the nation's foreign trade deficit.

Developed and developing countries endorsed a World Bank program today that would channel $2 billion more a year into sub-Saharan Africa to improve conditions that the bank says have left the average African worse off economically than at any time since 1970. The Special Action Program was endorsed by members of the bank's development committee, consisting of the finance ministers and central bank governors of the 147 member governments. They met here on the eve of the joint annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The development committee represents all the members of the World Bank and it sets policies for the organization. The annual meeting is a forum for speeches and discussions of the world economic scene.

When Jim Wright returned to work at Continental Air Lines last year, shortly after the carrier filed for protection from its creditors, his salary was cut to $30,000 from $45,000. His standing in the cockpit went from co-pilot to the lowest rank of flight engineer. Like many Continental employees, he returned over the opposition of his union, the Air Line Pilots Association, which is still on strike against the carrier. Many fellow workers stayed out, and some harrassed him with late- night telephone calls. One year later, the prospects for both Mr. Wright and his employer, which is based here, are considerably brighter. The airline's strategy is to rebuild gradually while lowering its costs to the level of the new non- union, low-cost carriers, and it seems to be paying off. Continental has reassembled most of the system it dismantled. It has restored routes, rehired employees and brought in new workers.

A silence of 50 years was broken gently - as much by the squealing of young children as by the echoing voices of their elders - as the elegant, long-abandoned sanctuary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue was rededicated yesterday. Once at the heart of Jewish life on the Lower East Side, the landmark temple has in recent years been home to a congregation barely larger than a minyan, the quorum of 10 adult men needed for a service. They worshiped in the basement because the sanctuary could not be maintained. There was neither heat nor electricity. Rain and snow cascaded into the temple. According to those involved with the restoration, the 97-year-old building was about to fall apart.

A furious dispute has erupted among France's mainly nationalized banks over an agreement between Credit Lyonnais and American Express that would allow non-French holders of American Express cards to draw francs directly from the bank's automatic cash machines. The agreement, signed last week, marks the latest in a limited number of ''cross-border'' pacts, which permit holders of charge cards from one country to draw money from dispensers belonging to a bank in another country. Currently some Visa cardholders can draw money from cash dispensers in Australia and Spain, while some holders of the American Express card have access to cash dispensing facilities in Canada. French banks are upset with Credit Lyonnais, one of the country's biggest state-owned banks, because they say the new pact breaches a cartel-like agreement they signed last July to establish a national credit card. With the agreement, the banks undertook to issue only Visa-linked credit cards - called Carte Bleue in France - and promised not to make any deals with other credit card organizations without permission from the rest of the group.