What was going on when I was born?

BOSTON Perhaps they can be compared to ma^itre d'hotels, assisting their teammates in the Boston Celtics' front court to the tables reserved under the basket. ''Here, on the baseline, Mr. Maxwell. Have a seat. Do you wish to see the wine list, Mr. Bird?'' When the Celtics have forwards the caliber of Larry Bird, Cedric Maxwell and Kevin McHale, and a center as good as Robert Parrish, then it is only natural for the backcourt to cater to their wishes. Dennis Johnson said he doesn't mind playing what is usually a subservient role, serving backdoor burgers for Bird and the others. It is the nature of a game dominated by big men, he said. Johnson said that he and Danny Ainge, and the cast of backcourt reserves are actually an ideal complement to the forwards.

''It will probably be a tie between our riders and the Park Avenue traffic on which is most inconvenienced.'' - William Aston, a vice president of Metro-North. (A1:6.)

A dispatch by the Associated Press on November 25 about competition for a Navy base to be situated on theGulf Coast misstated the number of cities competing and listed several incorrectly. Nineteen cities are under consideration, including Lake Charles, La., and Gulfport, Miss., Baton Rouge, La., is not under consideration.

The United States is close to agreement with steel-exporting nations on a system of quotas to curb their shipments here to less than 20 percent of the market. The arrangements have been painstakingly negotiated over the last three months under a Presidential steel plan announced Sept. 18 - a plan undertaken to quell election year pressures from the domestic industry and to deflect moves in Congress for even tighter controls. ''We are making considerable progress with a number of countries on steel,'' said David F. Demarest, spokesman for the United States Trade Representative, Bill Brock, who has managed the negotiations with a dozen countries and the 10-nation European Common Market. Deadline Nears The President set a Dec. 18 deadline to reach agreements that would limit finished steel imports to 18 1/2 percent of the market. So far this year, imports have averaged 26 percent of consumption.

The sweeping economic changes set in motion by China's leadership over the last six years have produced an almost total reinterpretation of the nation's official Communist ideology. While Soviet-style Marxism has become mired down, the Chinese are evolving a more flexible system. They have peeled away - some would say repudiated - familiar Marxist tenets that retarded the nation's ability to modernize itself. The leadership of Deng Xiaoping has scrapped the personality cult of Mao Zedong and has muted the old call for class struggle. Peking no longer talks of exporting revolution, but of importing Western technology and management techniques.

States across the country are limiting the coverage of hospital care for poor people under Medicaid in an effort to control the costs of the program. In Mississippi, for example, Medicaid will not pay for more than 15 days a year of hospital care for a beneficiary. The limit was cut to that level from 20 days in February, the second reduction in two years. ''It all revolves around money,'' said Billy F. Simmons, director of the Medicaid program in Mississippi. ''The state's been broke. It does not have any more money to put into the Medicaid program, so we have to make the money go further.''