What was going on when I was born?

This has been a sobering year for the nation's banking system as more banks failed than in any year since the Great Depression. With the collapse last weekend of a small bank in Sandwich, Ill., the number of failures in 1984 rose to 79, the highest since 81 banks failed in 1938. To be sure, this year's failures are a far cry from the 4,000 or so banks that failed in 1933, when there was no insurance system in place to cushion the blow, either to depositors or to the economy as a whole. Nonetheless, the rash of failures reflects both the existence of trouble spots in the economy - including agriculture, energy and real estate - as well as the uneven capabilities of bankers. But if the numbers loom large, there are some comforting aspects to them. For one thing, most of the failed banks were relatively small institutions. Although their problems may have shaken their local communities, they represented only a small portion of the banking system, smaller even than in recent years. Deposits at failed banks this year totalled only $2.9 billion, well below the $5.4 billion last year and the $9.9 billion of the previous year.

In a move that industry analysts said could spur other companies to lower oil prices, the Phillips Petroleum Company yesterday cut the price it will pay for the most common grade of crude oil in the United States by $1, to $28 a barrel. Most producers offer about $29 a barrel or a bit less for the key grade of oil, West Texas Intermediate. Refiners offer considerably less, because as nonproducers they have no interest in keeping prices up. But it is the prices offered by major companies that are both producers and refiners, such as Phillips, that attract the most attention.

The telephone industry has undergone sweeping changes since last Jan. 1, when the American Telephone and Telegraph Company divested itself of its 22 Bell operating companies. But as the first year comes to a close, Americans cannot agree whether the breakup of the Bell System was a good idea. Supporters of the breakup say that it has already produced lower long-distance rates, a telephone industry teeming with competitors and a rush of new communications technologies that will give American companies an important edge in competition with foreign rivals. Innovation Called Key ''The most important part of this is innovation, the fact that competition will drive the competitors to create new products,'' said Federal District Judge Harold H. Greene, who presided over the breakup and continues to supervise A.T.& T. and its former subsidiaries. He added: ''I have no doubt that this will bring about benefits to the economy. Information will be to this period what steel and coal were 50 years ago.''

An article in Business Day Dec. 8 about imported gift products misnamed the countries in which Charles Jourdan products are manufactured. They are France and Italy.

Put bonds. Springing warrants. Superstock. Money-market preferred shares. When it came to dreaming up new twists on old ways of raising money for American businesses, the corporate finance gurus of Wall Street had a creative and busy year. ''I think we've seen more fundamental changes in '84 than any year ever,'' said David C. Batten, a managing director of the First Boston Corporation. A Variety of Reasons

An article Dec. 11 about ''A Bunny's Tale,'' a television mini-series based on a story by Gloria Steinem, misidentified the studio that produced a ''Laverne and Shirley'' episode drawn in part from the same story. It was Paramount Studios.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1984 Markets Arbitragers who bought Phillips stock stand to lose up to $100 million, some of them said. Most heavily exposed, they added, is the company headed by Ivan F. Boesky, although Mr. Boesky would not confirm that. Many arbitragers, including Mr. Boesky, reportedly have already taken their losses in Phillips. (Page D1.) Stocks slipped in the second-lightest trading day of 1984. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.22 points, to 1,208.92. Analysts cited year-end tax selling. Volume was 46.7 million shares. (D8.)

Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said today that he did not want to commit Japan to importing specific amounts of American goods as a way to reduce its huge trade surplus with the United States. Mr. Nakasone, who is to meet with President Reagan in Los Angeles next Wednesday, also said his country was strengthening its military ability, but was doing so ''for the sake of Japan, not for the sake of other countries.'' The matter of military spending is sometimes linked to the trade issue by Americans who feel that Japan enjoys a ''free ride'' at United States expense. The Prime Minister made his remarks over a lunch at his official residence with 11 American reporters.

Limited partners in the Petro- Lewis Corporation voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favor of the establishment of a royalty trust in which they would receive shares, in exchange for dropping lawsuits against the company. The establishment of the trust is the centerpiece of the company's plan to clear up litigation charging that the company failed to adequately disclose problems with its income fund business last year. The royalty trust, to be listed on the American Stock Exchange, was proposed by the company in proxy material sent out in November.

Wall Street's arbitrage trading community stands to lose at much as $100 million if the stock of the Phillips Petroleum Company does not recover from the plunge it took on Monday, arbitragers said yesterday. Most heavily exposed, they added, is the investment management company headed by Ivan F. Boesky, the most active professional arbitrager. His company, the Ivan F. Boesky Corporation, is believed to have bought more than half of the estimated 10 million to 12 million shares purchased by professional arbitragers in recent weeks. Phillips's shares moved up 87 1/2 cents yesterday, to $46.125, but still were about $8 below the $54-to-$55-a-share average cost of the Boesky position, according to other arbitragers, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.

Thirteen of the 77 Cubans detained by immigration authorities at Kennedy International Airport last week have ''absconded'' from the Queens hotel where they were being held, immigration officials said yesterday. The officials also said that, because of a lack of space in the New York detention center, 26 others were sent to a center in Houston on Christmas Eve without notice to their lawyers or relatives. The Cubans who fled were among those supposed to appear for hearings in New York yesterday on their requests for political asylum, said Duane Austin, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman. ''But when we started proceedings and took a count, we found that 13 had not showed up,'' he said.

STEVE ATHA has 40 complete place settings in seven patterns. Richard Blons has 600 pieces in a pattern called Manhattan. In two years of collecting Nancy Brown found enough plates, bowls, cups and saucers in Patrician Amber to assemble a service for 14. People who like Depression glass, the colorful machine-made glassware of the 1930's, tend to like it in quantity. The glass, once mass-produced, was anything but a one-of-a-kind collectors' item, and today many patterns are still relatively plentiful and cheap. A nationally distributed 50-page monthly newspaper devoted to the glass makes it easy for buyers around the country to find the pieces and patterns they want. Perhaps all this enables people to give free rein to their collector impulses.