What was going on when I was born?

WHAT can be more fitting than an all-American wine to drink with an all-American dinner? The wine known as zinfandel -''zin'' by nickname - is produced in nine varieties, more than enough to enhance holiday fare prepared in traditional or innovative forms. With well-chosen examples, red zinfandel's rich bouquet and robust flavors will harmonize with cranberry fixings, onion dishes, yams, roast turkey, stuffing and pies. In a single bottle, red zinfandel may combine suggestions of spice, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, raisin, black pepper, licorice and chocolate. The fleshy, chewy texture of some zinfandels makes them seem like a side dish. Decanted into a clear glass vessel, placed symmetrically on the table to balance the cranberry dish, ruby-colored zinfandel embellishes the harvest palette. It is best savored in round glasses or in pinch-waisted chimney-shaped glasses that capture the rising fruity aromas.

President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, met today for more than four hours in what the two sides described as a ''good atmosphere.'' The much-heralded encounter, the first between Soviet and American leaders in six years, included two conversations with only interpreters present. They lasted more than two hours, although the schedule had called for only 15 minutes. Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, said that the long private conversations had been unexpected and that they contributed ''to our overall good feeling about the meetings.''

THOSE who dote on turkey at Thanksgiving are loath to admit that serving the bird on this holiday table is not easy to justify historically. It is not a clear-cut issue from a culinary point of view either, given the tough, dry bird many people must face on this festive occasion. It need not be so, however. Turkey, properly prepared and served with a suitable stuffing redolent of fresh sage or other herbs can be a fitting centerpiece to the Thanksgiving meal. Research has shown that if the Pilgrims did serve wild turkeys at that first harvest feast in 1621, they were very scrawny birds, indeed. The full-breasted birds on which we dine today were developed and genetically improved over several hundred years. In his book ''The Wild Turkey,'' (University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), A. W. Schorger writes: ''It is doubtful that a turkey became a common adjunct to a Thanksgiving dinner until about 1800.''

The House Ways and Means Committee voted today to abolish the investment tax credit and to lengthen the time over which companies can write off their investments in plants and machinery. Many industries have used the investment credit and the rapid depreciation features of the 1981 tax law to reduce their tax liabilities significantly. Today's decisions mean businesses would have to pay about $150 billion more in taxes over the next five years than they would owe without a change in the law, according to estimates by the committee staff. Comment by Rostenkowski Encouraged by the biggest tax decisions his committee has made in its consideration of tax revision legislation, the chairman, Representative Dan Rostenkowski, said the actions showed ''there's some reform in the minds of members.''

Between sessions with President Reagan today, Mikhail S. Gorbachev spent 45 minutes in a stand-up, impromptu discussion with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who twice pressed him on the predicament of Soviet Jews. The face-to-face encounter, which took place in a crowded lobby at the Soviet Mission, had little of the adversarial quality of Richard M. Nixon's ''kitchen debate'' with Nikita S. Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959. But the encounter was just as spontaneous and nearly as public. Surrounded by People Less than an arm's length apart, the two men stood in the center of a tight circle made up of American antiwar activists, high-ranking Soviet officials, security men, television crews and a handful of reporters. Mr. Jackson, who is here on behalf of a coalition of groups that collected more than a million signatures on petitions calling for a ban on nuclear tests, initially expected to make his points to Mr. Gorbachev in private. For his part, the Soviet leader apparently expected a brief handshaking session before the cameras and an exchange of generalities about peace that, some here suggested, might have been sought for the evening television news in Moscow.

Midway through his eight-day journey to Japan, Mayor Koch saw Tokyo from above and below today - in a helicopter and then in the subways. To the surprise of no one, including himself, he pronounced Toyko's trains clean, safe, prompt and all in all somewhat different from New York's. Japan has ''generations of training that you should have respect for your fellow citizens - not to intrude,'' he said after half an hour of riding on two trains, one on a new line and the other on an old one. ''Intrusion,'' he went on, ''surely exists when the walls are scarred with crayons and marks. I don't know how we're going to change that, but we're going to try.''

''NO more turkey,'' said Dennis the Menace, and perhaps countless other small children at Thanksgiving. ''But I'd like some more of the bread it ate.'' Apparently, children already understand what many adults are coming to recognize about the Thanksgiving meal - that the trimmings are the main attraction. By comparison, the turkey, though an admirable centerpiece for the table, is a bit player, an excellent excuse for indulging in all the accompaniments appropriate to the occasion. Certain of those trimmings are so closely associated with the holiday that sales for them increase dramatically at this time of year. William Greenberg Jr. Desserts, which has three shops in Manhattan, sells about 40 percent of its pumpkin pies the day before Thanksgiving. ''No one even asks for pumpkin pie until the cold weather begins,'' said Seth Greenberg, a co-owner. ''And the season only runs until New Year's, when they don't ask for them anymore.'' The same goes for cranberry sauce. Sales are divided evenly between the period of Thanksgiving to Christmas and the rest of the year. ''It has to do with the traditional association of cranberries with Thanksgiving,'' said James Kirk of Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. in Plymouth, Mass.

An article in the New Jersey Weekly on Sunday about the opening concert of the Garden State Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra misstated the performance date. It is Saturday at 8 P.M., at Toms River High School North.

As has often happened in the history of the Philippines, official corruption is emerging as a central issue within the nation. Now, according to Congressional sources and Administration officials, it is becoming an increasingly important factor in relations between the United States and the Philippines. The corruption issue figured in an unsuccessful effort to impeach President Ferdinand E. Marcos last summer. Opposition leaders have said they intend to bring it up in the elections scheduled for early next year and may refile impeachment charges with new documentation. In the United States, Congressional investigators and a Federal grand jury in the Washington area are looking into corruption in the Philippines.

The woman charged with murdering the head of the Deak-Perera foreign-exchange company and a receptionist in Manhattan was released from a mental hospital last August in Washington State, law-enforcement officials said yesterday. A spokesman for the University of Washington Police Department in Seattle said the woman, Lois Lang, had been arrested at least five times in the Seattle area since 1982 and had once tried to wrest a gun from a police officer. The spokesman, Sgt. Forest T. Franklin, said Miss Lang was known to the university police as a derelict who tramped through the campus at night, slept in university buildings when they opened in the daytime and stole food from the student cafeteria. ''She once mentioned to one of our officers that she was going to New York one day to set up her empire and rule the world,'' Sergeant Franklin said in a telephone interview.

International Summit talks began in a good mood, according to spokesmen for President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The first American-Soviet summit sessions in six years lasted more than four hours, with half the time spent alone by the two leaders, with only interpreters present. [Page A1, Col. 6.] Mr. Gorbachev and Jesse Jackson spent 45 minutes in a stand-up, impromptu discussion in a crowded lobby at the Soviet Mission in Geneva. Mr. Jackson twice pressed the Soviet leader on the predicament of Soviet Jews. Mr. Gorbachev looked him squarely in the eye, with no hint of tension, and addressed the issue the second time Mr. Jackson raised it. Later, he termed Mr. Gorbachev a ''master communicator.'' [A1:4-5.]

A state-sponsored evaluation of all elementary and secondary schools in New York State has found that two-thirds of the 600 schools with the lowest academic performance are New York City public schools, officials said yesterday. The study, whose preliminary results are to be made public today, was conducted by the State Department of Education at the request of the Board of Regents. It evaluated each of the 6,000 public and private schools in the state, primarily on the basis of their students' performance on achievement tests, but also considering such criteria as attendance and dropout rates. Of the schools that were ranked in the bottom 10 percent statewide, more than 400 are in New York City, according to city school officials who have been informed of the results. The city has 968 public schools, which serve 946,000 students.