What was going on when I was born?

Friday MAKING WAVES ON A FERRY Staten Island Ferry riders were stunned last year when leaping forms and tapping toes greeted them on their evening commute. Local dance companies were using the boat's decks and railings as a stage. They will be doing it again this weekend, to open the second Staten Island Council on the Arts Making Waves festival. Appropriately, Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks, a troupe noted for pieces celebrating urban transportation, will be among the companies performing on the two upper decks, on crossings from 5:30 to 7:40 P.M. tonight and 2 to 3:30 Saturday. Also pirouetting above the waves will be the American Ballroom Theater Company, NYC Tapworks, Marta Renzi and the Project Company and the Clive Thompson Dance Company. Admission is simply the 25-cent round-trip ferry fare. The number for information and detailed schedules: (718) 447-4485.

Because of an editing error, a Chicago dispatch yesterday on an agreement that ended a teachers' strike in that city incorrectly named the parent group of the Chicago Teachers Union. The union is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, not the National Education Association.

A Spanish company pleaded guilty in Federal court here today to providing Cuba and the Soviet Union with almost $2.5 million in valuable American manufacturing equipment. Prosecutors said the equipment was probably being used to make semiconductors for weapons systems. ''There is absolutely no doubt that the principal purpose of this equipment was the manufacture of national security and defense equipment,'' said Joseph E. diGenova, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. Mr. diGenova, whose office handled the case, said that the company illegally transferred the manufacturing equipment to Cuba and the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1982. Under a plea agreement, the company, Piher S.A., has agreed to pay a $1 million fine, although the Federal judge in the case would be permitted to impose a larger fine.

Saying that the nation's system of more than 800 cooperative farm banks faces ''the most severe crisis since the Depression days,'' the system's top regulator today asked Congress and the Reagan Administration to begin laying plans for a Federal rescue that he said could run to ''multibillions of dollars.'' If the deterioration of the farm economy persists, Donald E. Wilkinson, governor of the Farm Credit Administration, said at a news conference, parts of the Farm Credit System - as the loosely connected network of farmer-owned lending institutions is known - would face liquidation in 18 to 24 months without Federal aid. The nonfarm economy would suffer as well, he added. Mr. Wilkinson said the system was the farmers' biggest creditor, holding more than a third of all farm loans, or $$77 billion of a total of $213 billion.

THE beginning of September is the starting gun for New York's fall street festival season. This weekend there will be festivals all over town, drawing large crowds with their popular blend of ethnic foods, free entertainment, crafts sales and civic-minded spirit that manages to turn the big city into a network of small neighborhoods. West 46th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues - the block that has become the focal point of New York's lively Brazilian community - will be the site tomorrow of the First Brazilian National Independence Day Festival. ''We want to promote Brazil and celebrate the new democracy in our country,'' said Jota Alves, publisher of The Brasilians, the English-and-Portuguese newspaper that is sponsoring the event.

International Mixed-race youths hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at homes in a white suburb of Cape Town and white residents responded with gunfire, the South African authorities said. Two people of mixed racial descent were reported injured in the incident. [Page A1, Column 6.] South Africa, acting to defuse a financial crisis that threatened its ability to engage in world trade, pledged to stand behind the international debts of all of its banks. [A1:5.]

In an unexpected development last night, the State of Maryland took control of the Community Savings and Loan Association of Bethesda. While the move is aimed at protecting depositors, it will probably complicate efforts to rescue the thrift institution's troubled nationwide real estate subsidiary, the Equity Programs Investment Corporation. It was unclear last night whether the state's control would extend directly to Equity Programs and its sister companies. The state won circuit court approval to take over Community Savings after arguing in court that the thrift institution would probably not recieve Federal deposit insurance to take the place of its state insurance by the end of the year.

Crowds of mixed-race youths hurled rocks and gasoline bombs at homes in a white suburb outside Cape Town over night and whites responded with gunfire, the police said today. The incident was the first known spilling of racial violence into a white area in a year of unrest in South Africa that has claimed over 670 lives and forced the authorities to declare a state of emergency in 36 districts. Two people of mixed racial descent were reported injured in the incident Wednesday night, adding to over 160 wounded since unrest first flared here last week after years of quiescence. Sanction Demands Fought Authorities said violence erupted later in other parts of the city's mixed-race suburbs. [In Washington, President Reagan met with his top advisers to discuss how the United States could use its influence to end the violence in South Africa and bring about a dialogue between the Government and prominent black leaders, Administration officials said. Page A9.] The South African Government, meanwhile, seeking to offset the impact of the unrest abroad, began a new campaign aimed at countering demands in the United States for economic sanctions.

Avon Products Inc., the company that built the world's biggest beauty business by ringing doorbells, said yesterday that it was putting its large Mallinckrodt chemical and hospital products division on the block. It said it would use most of the money it collected to buy back 25 percent of its stock. Avon had bought the company for $711 million only three years ago, in its efforts to diversify beyond the sagging beauty products business. Hicks Waldron, chairman of Avon, yesterday called Mallinckrodt Inc. ''a great company'' but said ''it just doesn't fit with Avon's strategic direction.'' He said the divestiture is ''part of Avon's strategy to concentrate on consumer products and to continue to expand its health-care services business.''

Six Chileans were reported killed in a day of anti-Government demonstrations on Wednesday protesting the military regime of President Augusto Pinochet. More than three dozen people were wounded, including six who were in serious condition. Activity in most of the capital returned to normal today, but the Chilean Human Rights Commission said there were scattered incidents during the day in which the police used tear gas to disperse crowds in two outlying neighborhoods. It was unclear if there were any injuries.

ISOLATED by thick forests and corrugated hills, Litchfield County held out as the last corner of Connecticut to be settled in the 18th century. Bypassed in the 20th century by four-lane highways and economic development, this charming backwater is often one of the last areas of Connecticut to be discovered by visitors. Only two hours north of Manhattan, the Litchfield hills offer a bucolic world of clean lakes, covered bridges, rolling meadows, dense woods, quiet hiking trails and carefully restored Colonial houses bordered by white picket fences. It is a world of country inns with floors that creak underfoot, of restau-rants that serve bowls of fresh raspberry soup, of nature centers where children can pet a calf or watch a hen lay an egg, and of local museums displaying relics of Yankee ingenuity - a five-tined wooden hay fork or a dog-powered butter churn. As Connecticut's largest county, Litchfield sprawls over 900 square miles, contains the state's highest mountains, and, some say, is more heavily wooded today than in the days of the Indians.

The Cuomo administration, in its most comprehensive initiative to date, is about to propose an economic development plan that will include special help for the state's poorest areas and government loans for manufacturers, exporters and emerging businesses. The plan, described yesterday by Vincent Tese, the State Economic Development Director, is being put in final draft form for release this month. It would include job training programs, a cut in state regulations and the hiring of specialists to monitor industries for businesses looking to expand or relocate. ''You want to develop an economic groundswell to the point where when you begin to think of which state is the most dynamic in economic development, you'll say New York,'' Mr. Tese said in a telephone interview.