What was going on when I was born?

A dispatch by The Associated Press on Monday from Jasper, Ala., about the crash landing of a plane, misidentified its owner and operator. It was owned by Air Resorts, a California- based charter airline, and chartered by Tennessee Valley Airways of Nashville.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1984 International American flexibility on arms control was stressed by a senior Reagan Administration official. He said Washington would be willing to negotiate its long-term missile defense plan along with seeking cuts in offensive weapons systems when talks resume with Moscow early next month. (Page A1, Column 6.) A rare U.S.-Soviet cooperative effort arranged quietly between American and Soviet scientists was reported by a psysicist at the University of Chicago. He said that an American comet-dust detector was aboard the Soviet Vega spacecraft and had been tested successfully as the craft headed toward a rendezvous with Halley's comet in 1986. (A1:3.)

Almost nothing is impossible in New York, but some things are more unlikely than others. The modern-day equivalent of the true love celebrated in traditional song isn't likely, even at this season, to be presented with partridges in pear trees and other such delights that filled the 12 days of Christmas. But it matters not a whit. There are urban pleasures and surprises equally pleasing to the eye and, in some cases, almost as esoteric that unfold only for the holiday season. All that's required is a stout heart, sturdy shoes and a nudge in the right direction.

''HOW can I help you with Giorgio today?'' With $150-an-ounce perfume and $40 cologne and a pair of $47.50 perfumed candles, that's how. It is difficult this week to walk across the main floor of Bloomingdale's and not be confronted with those opportunities by Diana Romanello, the store's enthusiastic ''fragrance representative'' for Giorgio, the Rodeo Drive boutique. This time of year, Mrs. Romanello is a very important person around Bloomingdale's. It and other retailers are in hot pursuit of the holiday shoppers who traditionally represent one-quarter of their revenues and half of their profits. In the cosmetics department, the salespeople are in full cry. And none is more aggressive than the 29-year- old Mrs. Romanello, who has been selling fragrances, on and off, for 11 years, and for the last two years has been the manager of Giorgio's department at Bloomingdale's 59th Street flagship store. ''Customers at Bloomingdale's want to be sold,'' she said, ''and I want to sell them.''

WILLIAM R. GREER Despite strong opposition from residents of Harlem, the Salvation Army won approval from the Board of Estimate yesterday to give the area a new $4 million community center. The board's vote, 11 to 0, approved a new use for the property, which the city would sell at a price yet to be agreed upon. The sale is also subject to board approval. ''This is $4 million against the community,'' said Leslie Carter, a member of the local community board, in a hearing at City Hall. ''It's a crime to come into that area where you've got more social agencies than God ever intended. Remember, an election is coming up.''

The Justice Department said yesterday that it would not challenge a proposal by British Airways to cut its fares between New York and London. The decision could be a major step in getting the lower fares approved by the British Government, but British Airways officials reacted with caution. John W. Lampl, public relations manager for the carrier in the United States, said the airline welcomed the decision, but ''we don't know what the British Government's reaction will be.''

ON the weekend before Christmas, television is getting into the holiday spirit with a fanfare of appropriate music specials. The most ambitious and rewarding is a two-part presentation on public television's ''Great Performances'' series of Johann Sebastian Bach's ''Christmas Oratorio.'' Tonight from 9 to 10:30, Channel 13 will carry ''Part I: The Nativity,'' with the first three of the oratorio's six cantatas. ''Part II: The Epiphany'' will be broadcast next Friday at 9.

In a rare cooperative effort arranged quietly between American and Soviet scientists, an American comet-dust detector is aboard the Soviet Vega spacecraft heading toward a rendezvous with Halley's comet in 1986, a University of Chicago physicist announced yesterday. The Vega 1 craft was launched Saturday in the Soviet Union, and the dust detector has been tested successfully. An identical vehicle, equipped with a duplicate of the highly sensitive detector built by University of Chicago scientists, is set for liftoff today. Several other American scientists, it was also disclosed, have key roles in the Soviet missions. A University of Arizona astronomer is a member of the image analysis team, and a physicist from the same school designed another major instrument. A University of Michigan atmospheric scientist is also participating on another team of Vega experimenters.

In what could be a breakthrough in the manufacture of computer memory, scientists at Bell Laboratories said last night they had perfected a 1-million-bit memory circuit that could be mass-produced in about a year. In an announcement from a Bell Laboratories plant in Allentown, Pa., the scientists said they had produced the fingernail-sized chip after a year of development in which the tiny circuit was exposed to the rigors of both use and volume production. Their chip is referred to in the industry as a 1-megabit dynamic R.A.M., or random-access memory. This designation means that it can store one million bits, or pieces of information, and that the information can be retrieved in any order. The chip would have four times the recording ability of the most powerful chip currently available, the 256- kilobit dynamic R.A.M.

''New York is the greatest city in the world, but cleanliness is not one of its greatest virtues - a fact that increasingly frustrates and angers all New Yorkers.'' - David Rockefeller. (B3:6.)

Friday WINTER ON WINTER Winter's arrival today will be marked by wolves, whales and wrens at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street. Their voices, on tape, will mingle with the live sounds of the Paul Winter Consort in its fifth annual ''Winter Solstice Whole Earth Christmas Celebration.'' Since the 1970's, Mr. Winter, a champion of endangered species, has been blending recorded wildlife sounds with music that has roots in classical, jazz, Latin and African traditions. Tickets: $12 and $20. Ticketron: 977-9020; Teletron: 947-5850. BEADS AND CATS TEETH Nearly 150 rare items of personal adornment, including a beaded apron from the Sudan, a headdress of horn, shells, hide and iron from Togo and a necklace of glass beads and leopards' teeth from Zaire, are on view through Jan. 5 at the African-American Institute, 833 United Nations Plaza (First Avenue and 47th Street). The exhibition, ''Beauty by Design: The Aesthetics of African Adornment,'' includes costumes, accessories and jewelry dating mostly from the mid- 19th and early-20th century. Hours: 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. weekdays, 11 to 5 Saturdays. Free.

A Moscow dispatch Tuesday, about Russians who leave their homeland and later return, misidentified the operatic bass who died in Paris in 1938 and whose body was returned to Moscow this fall for reburial. He was Fyodor Chaliapin.