What was going on when I was born?

Two electric power companies serving Connecticut and Long Island - the areas of the New York region hit hardest by Hurricane Gloria - said yesterday that they had no insurance to cover the damage inflicted by the storm. One of the utilities said it would probably seek a rate increase to cover part of the costs. ''We do not have insurance for the type of activity that took place,'' said Emmanuel Forde, a spokesman for Northeast Utilities, which supplies electricity to about one million customers in Connecticut. ''We had been insured by Lloyd's, but that coverage was discontinued as of July 1.'' A spokesman for the Long Island Lighting Company, Carol Clawson, said the utility, serving more than one million homes and businesses in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, was also not insured against hurricane damage. She said that Lilco has a ''storm restoration fund'' but that it was ''in a negative cash-flow position from prior storms.''

The emotions of the Mets during their game with Pittsburgh today went up and down more often than an elevator. They had the game won, then they weren't certain, then they thought they had lost it, then they had it won again but couldn't be too sure of that either until they were lodged safely in their clubhouse. As they got out of their uniforms, perhaps undressing quickly before someone could come in and tell them the Pirates were going to get another chance, they knew precisely where they stood in the division race that has been reduced to the final week of the season: They were three games behind first-place St. Louis and they were heading there to play the Cardinals three times. The Mets reached that juncture in the hectic National League East scramble by outlasting the Pirates today, 9-7, scoring the decisive runs on Gary Carter's two-run home run against Larry McWilliams in the 10th inning. Howard Johnson had led off the ninth inning with a game-tying home run against Cecilio Guante after the Pirates rallied for three eighth-inning runs against Roger McDowell for a 7-6 lead.

Companies Richardson-Vicks was barred from issuing new preferred stock designed to ward off a takeover attempt by Unilever, at least until the case can go to trial. Vicks said it may appeal the preliminary injunction issued by a Federal District Court judge. [Page D1.]

As police officers with heavy plastic shields and other riot gear dealt with a second night of violence in the mostly black district of Brixton this evening, clusters of young whites milled among crowds of young blacks in a spirit of common hostility to the authorities. Although the rioting is viewed in the rest of Britain as a racial confrontation, people on the scene today indicated that there might have been other causes. 'People Against the Police' ''The blacks are all right,'' said a young white with the name of the punk rock star Sid Vicious tatooed on his shoulder, a flaring crest of spiky hair and a necklace fashioned from a chain and padlock. ''We were with them last night,'' he said. ''It's not a black-white thing. It's the people against the police.''

Tony Lizzul was a little shocked by what he found in the backyard of his beach house when he returned here today. The roof of the oceanfront house next door rested upside down in a clump of prized juniper trees by his pool. ''Calvin's roof flew across my pool and crashed into the corner of the house,'' said Mr. Lizzul, surveying the tattered cedar roof and beams belonging to the home of his neighbor, the designer Calvin Klein. The two-story, glass-fronted home of Mr. Klein - reduced to three sides so that it resembled a theatrical stage, with a television and a couple of terra cotta pots in the living room incongruous props - was one of four homes severely damaged Friday by Hurricane Gloria.

The Giants struck a blow today for the argument that defense wins football games. But their 16-10 overtime victory made an even stronger case for the notion that good fortune wins games. ''We fumbled on the goal line, a center messed up a snap, we self-destruct in our own end zone. . .yeah, it was luck. The whole game was a wash,'' said Coach Bill Parcells.

America's huge industrial corporations, which have always tried to do as much as possible themselves, are backing away from the mines-to-markets orthodoxy that has prevailed since Andrew Carnegie's day. Business empires that prided themselves on offering complete lines of manufactured goods are methodically weeding out their less profitable or promising offerings; they are letting specialists - in many cases overseas companies - take over part of the manufacturing process because they offer more cost efficiency and provide flexibility. Now the corporation that has its hand in everything from the raw materials to the distribution and servicing of finished products is being questioned by managers. Some say that a radical change is needed for companies to remain competitive and more flexible in markets that have become global. Others, however, say such changes show that American companies are willing to let others do what they should be doing, and that jobs Americans should be holding will move overseas.

In pre-dawn darkness last Monday, Eugene W. Boehringer, a First Boston Corporation currency trader, groped for his home telephone to check on London. There, his firm's traders were frantically buying foreign-currency bonds and monitoring their position in United States dollars. The investment banking firm held more than $20 billion of stocks and bonds in its inventory, and a major drop in the dollar's foreign-exchange rate could cause millions of dollars in losses. And an announcement made the day before by five major industrial nations was threatening to do just that. Britain, France, West Germany, Japan and the United States had said they would all work together to push down the dollar's value. First Boston's traders in London acted quickly, moving in and out of bonds and various foreign currencies, trying to turn potential losses into gains even before trading opened in New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is still completing its huge southwest wing, has filed plans with the Landmarks Preservation Commission for a new $35 million structure. The addition would house European sculpture and decorative arts, along with temporary loan shows, and is the final element in the museum's master building plan, first outlined in 1970. It would face Central Park, fitting into the space between the southwest wing and the southern facade of what is known as Wing B, designed by Theodore Weston in 1888, but will not encroach on park land. Of the estimated cost, $11.2 million is to be financed by a loan from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, an agency that issues bonds for certain types of public and private construction. Philippe de Montebello, director of the museum, would not say whether the rest of the money is in hand.

An article on the Washington Talk page on Wednesday, about Bowen, Ill., hometown of Senator Barry Goldwater's mother, misidentified its mayor. He is Ronald Moormann.

Municipalities across the New York metropolitan region are facing serious problems in obtaining liability insurance to protect themselves against a dramatic increase in damage awards and litigation, according to state and local officials. Some insurance companies, citing heavy losses and unanticipated multimillion-dollar court judgments against municipalities, have canceled policies or stopped writing new ones when the coverage expires. Cities and towns throughout the nation are reporting similar problems, officials said. And what insurance the municipalities can find, the officials added, costs much more - sometimes four or five times more than a year ago -and generally provides far less coverage. An 'Insurance Nightmare' ''This is probably the greatest crisis in municipal finance today, both in Connecticut and throughout the nation,'' said Joel Cogan, executive director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which represents many of the state's 169 cities and towns.

Leading businessmen in South Africa, including Afrikaners and representatives of foreign corporations, called in full-page newspaper advertisements today for the abolition of apartheid and negotiations with ''acknowledged black leaders'' on sharing power. The advertisements, which appeared in both English-language and Afrikaans newspapers, were signed by 91 leaders of South African companies and subsidiaries of international concerns. Businessmen have been urging the Government to introduce a policy of broad-based change and peaceful accommodation of the political, social and economic aspirations of the nation's black majority. The advertisements represented a further step to push the Government to move quickly in this direction.