What was going on when I was born?

The way things are going in Texas, college students at state schools will soon see their tuition triple, professional wrestlers will pay $15 instead of $10 for their licenses and paroled convicts will have to pay the state $10 a month to supervise their parole. These are the lengths to which the Texas Legislature is going to balance the state's budget in the face of continued recession in the petroleum industry, which has long been the state's main source of revenue and has given Texans a kind of free lunch as far as taxes go. It is the stark irony of this spring of 1985 that Texas, whose once-booming economy has been dampened by falling world oil prices, is struggling to make ends meet at a time when once-distressed Northern industrial states like New York and New Jersey are suddenly enjoying comfortably balanced budgets and even cutting taxes. 'Paying for Sins We Committed' ''We are paying for the sins we committed in the last 10 years when we had an abundance of revenue,'' said Gib Lewis, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. Because the state never expected the oil and gas revenue to fall, he said, it did not ''save for a rainy day.''

THIS is the beginning of the summer wine season. What exactly is a summer wine? It has a lot to do with wide green lawns; the thwock of tennis balls; white slacks and cotton dresses, and Chinese lanterns along the edge of a moonlit lake. It is not a product, summer wine - it is a romantic idea, gauzy and delicate and probably, at its best, not exposed to harsh reality. In fact, more than a few cynics say the best summer wine is beer. White and rose wines are commonly thought of as summer wines. It is understandable. In the bottle or in the glass, they look more like lemonade or raspberry soda than wine. And because they are less complex than red wine - they have almost no tannin, for one thing - they go down easily. But beware: the alcohol content can readily match that of the big reds.

The growth of the nation's economy all but stopped during the first three months of this year after nearly two years of vigorous expansion, the Commerce Department reported today. It said the gross national product, undermined primarily by the effects of the strong dollar, grew at a rate of only seven-tenths of 1 percent in the quarter, barely half the already slow pace of the Government's preliminary estimate last month. At the same time, the Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index rose four-tenths of 1 percent in April, a moderate increase that was not enough to worry economists. [Page D13.] The Reagan Administration and private economists were inclined to label today's report the epitaph of an erratic deceleration of the economy that began late last summer, rather than a signal of worse to come.

The Reagan Administration today offered a compromise on the MX missile that would temporarily limit deployment to 50 weapons. That offer, in response to a rising chorus of complaints about the huge missile, is exactly half of the Administration's original plan: to house 100 missiles in existing silos on the Western plains. In effect, the Administration has conceded defeat, at least for now, in its efforts to field a full MX force. But the White House wants to leave open the possibility of requesting more missiles in the future, in case arms control talks break down and tensions rise with the Soviet Union.

A prominent New York lawyer gave Alfred E. Smith more than $400,000 in cash and stock options while Smith was Governor of New York in the 1920's, according to a chapter dropped from the lawyer's recently published autobiography. The lawyer, Thomas L. Chadbourne, a millionaire active in Democratic Party politics, wrote in 1928 that he gave Smith the money - at a time when the Governor's salary was $10,000 a year - to encourage him to remain in public life, not to exact favors. Mr. Chadbourne's memoirs, which had been in private hands since well before his death in 1938, were put out earlier this year by New York University Law School. But the Smith material was left out after objections from the law firm bearing Mr. Chadbourne's name - Chadbourne, Parke, Whiteside & Wolff of New York. A copy of the omitted material was obtained by The New York Times.

State Department officials said today that the United States would soon stop processing Cambodian refugees in Thailand for resettlement in this country. Unless there is a change in plans, this would mean the end of a program that has brought 120,000 Cambodians to the United States since Indochina became Communist in 1975. The officials explained the cutoff by saying that no more Cambodians in Thailand were deemed eligible for admission. Of the 25,000 in the main refugee camp, at Khao-i-Dang, all but 2,000 have been processed and deemed ineligible, the officials said.

IN Malaysia, the word satay refers to foods such as beef, lamb, chicken and seafood that are put on skewers and grilled, usually over hot coals. They make an ideal dish for the outdoor season that is upon us, especially for those cooks who can't resist a touch of the exotic. The array of flavors in a satay are dazzling: coconut, lemon grass, peanuts and, of course, the meat, all with the mildly smoky taste that charcoal grilling can impart. My own first taste of satay, on a beach near Kuala Lumpur more than 20 years ago, might as well have been yesterday, so strong was the impact. Count me as an instant convert. Tunku Khadijah Bakar, whose husband, Syed Hussein Bakar, is the Malaysian Consul General in New York, is an excellent cook and, like many in her country, considers satays to be her specialty. ''Satays,'' she explained, ''are the national dish of Malaysia, and I doubt that you will find duplicate recipes in any two kitchens on the peninsula. Every cook has his or her own formula.''

IN the beginning there was ice cream and sherbet, and for some, cups of shaved ice flavored with syrups. Ice milk came later. Then about five years ago, when the phrase ''eating healthy'' started gaining currency, frozen yogurt entered the market. Since then, the ranks of frozen desserts that claim to be healthful, ''all natural'' or just plain better for us than ice cream and sherbet (the implied standards) have grown to polar cap proportions. With phrases like ''no preservatives,'' ''low fat'' and ''ONLY 70 calories'' sprinkled over their packages, these products seem to suggest that we can have frozen treats and be health-conscious, too. The newer frozen desserts are often what they seem to be. But sometimes they are not. Products with the word ''tofu'' in their names, for example, have little if any soybean curd in them. Some so-called healthy items have the same calorie and fat content as ice cream. Several claiming to be ''all natural'' strain the meaning of those words.

At more than 200 places along the filigree arches of the Riverside Drive viaduct, workers have put in steel buckles and cables to hold the structure steady. In other areas, the emergency repairs look more amateurish: Wooden boards have been used to prop up the concrete roadbed. But after months of such repairs, state officials have decided that the boards, the buckles and the cables are not enough to keep the 87-year-old roadway between 125th and 135th Streets safe, and they have closed the bridge indefinitely. Drivers have often used the viaduct to escape from traffic jams on the Henry Hudson Parkway, which itself has been under repair for years. Now, with one route closed and the other restricted, motorists are being forced, once again, to look for other ways - often on local streets - to get in and out of Manhattan. Transportation officials said that they were taking steps to ease the congestion, but that motorists would find little relief.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1985 International Cambodians may stop resettling in the United States. State Department officials said there were almost no more eligible Cambodian refugees left in Thailand deemed eligible for resettlement by American officials on the scene. [Page A1, Column 4.] Pleas for freeing Jewish terrorists increased in Israel in the aftermath of the release of 1,150 Palestinians and other prisoners in exchange for three Israeli soldiers. Hundreds of backers of 27 convicted and suspected Jewish terrorists demonstrated outside Parliament. [A16:4-6.]

THOUGH some people have already got a start on a seasonal tan, the Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial opening of sunbathing season for millions of Americans who equate tanned skin with beauty and health or who spend many hours a week working or playing in the searing summer sun. But before dusting off the deck chair or spreading a blanket on the sand, think about what that sun does to the skin besides giving it a pink or golden glow and how you can protect against some of the sun's damaging effects. There are now available about 50 sunscreen preparations that can help people with various skin types avoid most of the harm caused by solar rays. Dermatologists are seeing more and more patients who are paying the price of sun exposure, both immediately after and decades later. The doctors point out, for example, that the incidence of malignant melanoma, a once-rare and often fatal form of skin cancer, is now rising faster than any other cancer in this country except for lung cancer in women.

''Never again will Israel be able to condemn any other country which will be blackmailed into freeing terrorists who have killed Jews -whether it is in France, Germany or England.