What was going on when I was born?

The Economy Industrial production fell 0.6 percent last month, the Federal Reserve reported. It was the first monthly decline since the recession ended in November 1982. The Reagan Administration characterized it as good news, although one senior official suggested that prospects for the economy might be turning bleaker than the White House and most economists have been predicting. (Page A1.) Most major banks cut their prime lending rate to 12 1/2 percent , from 12 3/4 percent. The move, which had been expected, reflects a slowing in the growth of the economy. The reduction, however, did not match the step taken on Monday by Bankers Trust, which lowered its prime rate to 12 1/4 percent. (D1.)

CATERING to the vehement food likes and dislikes of children and teen-agers is hard enough in a family. Multiplied several hundredfold, the task seems insurmountable. Making institutional food taste good is admittedly difficult. The task is almost impossible when the institution is a school where money is limited; the time for eating is short - sometimes 20 minutes; the lunchrooms are often dreary, and educators treat the lunch hour as the least important part of the day. Despite such problems, some school lunches have been improving, starting in the mid-1970's, when the country's nutrition consciousness was raised. That set the stage for a new type of school food-service director, one committed to getting a healthful, appealing meal into the students instead of the garbage. Croissants and taco salads, French bread pizzas and nachos with cheese - these and other attractions from the nation's fast-food restaurants can now be found in some of the country's most innovative school lunch programs. Not that they have replaced the fish sticks and beef stew that millions of children love to hate. Rather, they have added a variety to the menus that have some youngsters admitting they like school lunch.

The bells of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at General Theological Seminary began ringing at 9:05 yesterday morning. In his room on the third floor, Bishop Desmond Tutu sat with his wife, Leah, and listened to them sound with joy over his Nobel Peace Prize. ''I slept badly last night,'' said Bishop Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and the leading spiritual voice of blacks in South Africa. He became a visiting professor in Anglican studies at the seminary at Ninth Avenue and 21st Street last month.

Canada's car industry is one of the brightest spots in the country's economy - a triumph, as it happens, that is in large part a matter of luck. The gradual erosion of the country's dollar to a level of about 76 cents in United States currency, although raising the cost of living, has made exports considerably more attractive. The bigger car models made here, which Canadians complained about five years ago when gasoline prices were skyrocketing, are now best sellers. Even the country's militant United Automobile Workers union does not seem so menacing to American companies - despite the strike deadline faced by General Motors on Wednesday - when they consider the currency differential and the fact that the Canadian federal and provincial governments pick up the tab for medical benefits. 'In the Right Place' ''The fact the companies are a success is the result of circumstances over which they've had no control,'' said Maryann Keller, an analyst with Vilas-Fisher Associates Ltd. in New York. ''They just happen to be in the right place at the right time.''

A review of Susan Cheever's book ''Home Before Dark'' last Thursday misstated the circumstances of her 1977 Newsweek interview with her father, John Cheever. In addition to a list of questions and answers composed for the interview by Mr. Cheever, his daughter also composed her own list of questions.

''This award is a tremendous political statement. It says that despite all distortions of truth, the world recognizes that we are striving for peace.

Participants in talks Monday between Salvadoran Government and rebel officials said today that despite the lack of agreement on a cease-fire, they were cautiously optimistic about results of the meeting. They said, however, they were divided on major issues. They said in separate interviews that their chief objective had been to establish the desirability of continued meetings. No specific proposals were made by either side about rebel participation in elections, a formal cease-fire or power-sharing with rebel forces, the participants said. ''There were no demands made by either side,'' President Jose Napoleon Duarte said at a news conference today.

When Lane Kirkland enters the industrial Middle West to rally union members to the Democratic Presidential ticket, he will find that labor's campaign, recently regarded as slack and despondent, has snapped to attention. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. president has been patrolling the Northeast and is to begin a trip around the Middle West Oct. 18 in a camper dubbed the Solidarity Van. He will find the voter rolls enlarged in labor precincts of cities like this one, and the telephone banks buzzing with activity at the Labor Temple and the United Automobile Workers hall. Mr. Kirkland will discover that a gloomy sense of inevitable defeat for labor's candidate, Walter F. Mondale, has given way, especially since his first debate with President Reagan, to a lively, underdog enthusiasm. Slow to Reach Rank and File But so far this feeling has been slow to penetrate beyond the union officials and shop stewards and infect the rank and file.

Industrial production in the United States fell last month for the first time since the recession ended in November 1982, the Federal Reserve Board reported today. Its announcement of a moderate decline of six-tenths of 1 percent from the August peak brought quick assurances by the election-minded Reagan Administration that the report was essentially good news. ''The economy is settling down to slower growth, when it's not unusual to have a one-month decline in industrial production,'' said Robert Ortner, chief economist at the Commerce Department. The report, Mr. Ortner said, confirms that the nation's economy has decelerated from a fast pace that could lead to production bottlenecks and higher inflation.

Oil prices, after rising steadily in September, have fallen sharply this month. The decline has surprised many industry analysts, since prices normally rise as autumn progresses. But the analysts believe prices will soon recover when the cold weather comes. Even if they are right, prices are likely to be no higher than last year, and they may be less.

The trial of 19 people accused of murdering former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop started dramatically today with the defendants refusing to enter pleas and one of them appearing to collapse. As she lay on a bench in the dock after apparently fainting, the only woman among the defendants, Phyllis Coard, cried out that she had been on a hunger strike for six weeks and that she had been denied access to her lawyers, her family and a doctor of her choice. One lawyer said Mrs. Coard had been visited by two colleagues last week. Reign of Terror' Charged Mrs. Coard's husband, Bernard Coard, who served as Mr. Bishop's deputy in the leftist People's Revolutionary Government and who is also accused of murder, yelled from the dock that he and the other defendants had been subjected to a ''reign of terror'' by the Commissioner of Prisons, Lionel Maloney, during the nearly one year they have been in detention.

The nation's leading banks yesterday lowered their prime lending rate a quarter of a percentage point, to 12 1/2 percent, providing a further indication of the slowing of the economy. The move was widely expected, but the reduction was smaller than the one announced Monday by the Bankers Trust Company, which lowered its base rate for corporate loans to 12 1/4 percent. Economists attributed the decline to a decrease in the costs banks must pay for their own borrowings. That, in turn, resulted from a falloff in the rapid pace of economic growth since the first half of the year.