What was going on when I was born?

The Civil Aeronautics Board approved airline schedule adjustments yesterday intended to reduce persistent flight delays that have not let up since the summer travel season. The more than 1,300 schedule changes, which take effect Sunday with the end of daylight saving time, affect flights arriving at or leaving the three major airports in the New York area and the major terminals in Chicago, Atlanta and Denver. These six airports have accounted for three-quarters of the record number of flights in recent months that have taken off or landed 15 minutes or more behind schedule. Peak-Hour Flights Affected The changes, which primarily affect flights that have been bunched together in the peak morning and evening hours, were worked out last month in eight days of meetings among the airlines. These negotiations among competing carriers required exemption from antitrust laws by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which yesterday approved the resulting agreement by a 5-to-0 vote.

The only thing that stands between ''Boo'' and Broadway is $1,250,000, and Anthony Moyer, the play's co-author and co-producer, was absolutely certain the other day that the show would go on. ''Boo'' has ''incredible subsidiary rights,'' he was saying. ''It will have incredible returns to investors.'' And finances aside, the play itself was - well, incredible. ''A lot of people have seen possession tales,'' he added, ''but in this, the demon jumps from nun to nun. So this provides an incredible piece of theater for four actresses.''

Companies I.B.M. will open a personal computer plant in Mexico , sources in Mexico City said. If the Mexican Government gives final approval, the company would become the first foreign microcomputer maker to set up shop without giving majority control to a Mexican partner. The total investment would exceed $300 million and the plant could produce 600,000 units over five years, mostly for export. (Page D1.) I.B.M. introduced many hardware and software products, putting new pressure on its rivals. (D3.) Braniff's severe retrenchment may only postpone its collapse, many analysts say, although the hobbled airline contends it is shrinking only to preserve cash until it can expand again in the spring. The Pritzker family, which recently took over the carrier, said it would keep trying for a revival. (D1.)

The dollar traded erratically yesterday, dipping at one point below the 3-mark barrier it first cleared in the second week of September. It was pushed down by unconfirmed reports that the West German central bank had intervened for at least the third time in a month to bring the dollar down from its recent high levels. After climbing to about 3.0450 marks before the intervention rumors, the dollar was sent tumbling to a low of 2.9975 marks in disorderly dealings. By the end of the day it had climbed back to 3.0210 marks, down from 3.0225 late Wednesday.

An article in Sports Pages yesterday about the National Football League's problems included a figure based on a miscalculation by league officials, which overstated the attendance increase this year. It is 0.9 percent.

When Joseph Sutera moved here in 1920 to peddle fish off the back of a truck, he was ''too busy to get involved in politics or vote,'' his son, Charles, recalled. Like his father, Charles Sutera sells fish in this town on the banks of the Hudson River in Rockland County. Unlike his father, however, he owns a store, Charley Sutera's Fish Market, and is going to make time to vote. ''If Reagan is re-elected, I see a period of prosperity,'' he said, standing under a memento of his father's hard work - the horn he blew while driving his truck along streets lined by Victorian houses.

The Speaker of the West German Parliament resigned today after being implicated in a political payoff scandal. The official, Rainer Barzel, 60 years old, has been accused of accepting half a million dollars from the Flick holding company in exchange for giving up the leadership of the Christian Democratic Party in 1973 in favor of Helmut Kohl, now the Chancellor. On Wednesday, Mr. Barzel denied before a parliamentary subcommittee investigating the Flick affair that he had accepted a payoff, insisting that he had been properly paid as a legal consultant. But his testimony disappointed Chancellor Kohl and other party leaders, and they pressed for the Speaker's resignation.

An article in Metropolitan Report on Oct. 5 about Western square dancing incorrectly described its status in New York City. There are indeed clubs - nine of them - in the city, according to the National Square Dance Directory.

District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn said yesterday that she would act to seize cars driven by drunken drivers in cases involving repeat offenses or serious injuries to others. Miss Holtzman said she would use a provision of a law passed by the Legislature last June that sets up procedures for prosecutors to seize assets gained from a crime as well as the ''instrumentalities'' used to commit the crime. Other prosecutors in the city indicated they were planning similar action. While the main intent of the legislation was to add a new weapon in the battle against drug smugglers, the sponsor of the law, Senator Frank Padavan, a Queens Republican, said that one provision applied to other crimes and that this could include serious drunken-driving cases.

The Financial Corporation of America, which came very close to failing in late August, according to its new chairman, today reported a profit of $1.2 million in the third quarter, following a loss of $107.2 million in the second quarter. Financial Corporation's thrift unit, the American Savings and Loan Association, lost more than a fourth of its deposits, or $6.8 billion, in the quarter. But Financial was able to raise $11.1 billion through a combination of loans from the Federal Home Loan Bank system, asset sales and mortgage-backed borrowings from Wall Street brokerages. The money was used to meet the outflow of deposits and to fund new loans.

As Braniff Inc. tells it, the troubled airline has resorted to a new form of hibernation, an act of shriveling to stay alive through the winter. ''We'll shrink the airline through the winter to preserve our cash,'' Patrick Foley, Braniff's new president, said in an interview today, ''and then expand again in the springtime.'' By most accounts, however, that notion is more of the excess optimism that has characterized Braniff since it came out of bankruptcy reorganization last March with hopes of winning a new niche in the competitive Dallas market. More likely, outsiders say, Braniff has chosen a retrenchment that may only postpone its demise.

Excerpts from speech, page A12. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said last night that the United States should stop equivocating and adopt a policy to use military force against terrorist groups. He said this should be done even if it led to the death of American servicemen and some innocent people. ''We may never have the kind of evidence that can stand up in an American court of law,'' he said. ''But we cannot allow ourselves to become the Hamlet of nations, worrying endlessly over whether and how to respond.''