What was going on when I was born?

A dispatch on Nov. 25 from Santa Fe, N.M., about efforts to save native plants from extinction in the United States and Canada, incorrectly described Talavaya Center, a Santa Fe preservation organization. It receives no Federal aid.

The State Health Commissioner recommended yesterday that charges of professional misconduct be reinstated against Dr. Elliot M. Gross, the city's Chief Medical Examiner. The Commissioner, Dr. David Axelrod, asked the State Board of Regents to reverse the ruling by the department's chief administrative law judge that the State Health Department lacked jurisdiction to prosecute the Chief Medical Examiner for gross incompetence or negligence. The judge ruled that performing autopsies was not practicing medicine and that therefore the charges should not be considered by the state-appointed board that ordinarily handled charges of medical misconduct. Yesterday, Dr. Axelrod said that a panel that was to have begun hearings in October should be granted the opportunity to decide the substance of the allegations.

For Thornton F. Bradshaw, who has led RCA for the last five years, the acquisition by the General Electric Company is a personal as well as a professional turning point. Mr. Bradshaw, who is 68 years old, said yesterday that he would retire when the deal is completed next year and become a consultant to the company. When Mr. Bradshaw, who had been president of the Atlantic Richfield Company for 17 years, was appointed by RCA as chairman and chief executive in 1981, he was widely viewed as an interim manager - a distinguished businessman who would lend the company much-needed stability while it searched for a hands-on chief executive. Instead Mr. Bradshaw took charge, selling off some of RCA's new acquisitions, restoring its focus on its original businesses -electronics, communications and entertainment - and returning the company to the black. ''In 1981 the company was worth more dead than alive,'' said James Magid, an analyst at L. F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin. ''Bradshaw has presided over a major corporate turnaround.''

Companies G.E. said it could take a year to complete its merger with RCA. The comment sent RCA shares skidding by $4.25 a share, to $59.25, well below the $66.50 offering price. Trading was extremely heavy as investors, unwilling to tie up their money that long, sold the stock. G.E. said it would take time to arrange $4 billion or more of financing and to get regulatory approvals for the merger. [Page D10.] Grant Tinker, the head of NBC, said the resources of the merged company could speed the network's progress, including the possible development of a 24-hour cable news operation. [D10.] The Big Board is investigating trading in RCA and G.E. stocks before the merger was announced. [D11.] It took just 36 days h for G.E. and RCA to forge their multibillion-dollar merger, beginning with a meeting of the chairmen of G.E. and RCA at the Upper East Side apartment of Felix Rohatyn. [A1.] GAF sweetened the terms of its bid for Union Carbide by offering $68 a share in cash for all outstanding shares and by no longer requiring that Carbide's board approve the deal. [D1.] Oppenheimer & Company officers are discussing buying the investment banking and brokerage house back from Mercantile Holdings of London, according to sources close to both companies. [D1.] Nippon Oil delayed plans to explore some Texaco oilfields because of Texaco's legal battle with Pennzoil. The action symbolized the concern felt by Texaco's lenders, suppliers and partners.

In four years as the chairman of the General Electric Company, John F. Welch Jr. has become known simultaneously as one of the nation's toughest executives, as an intellectually astute manager and as a man more inclined to demand action immediately than wait for a second opinion. Mr. Welch has made his mark on G.E., where sharp cost cutting, plant modernization and a host of management changes have made him something of a guru in business circles. Still, one of the questions that loomed large in the wake of Wednesday's merger announcement by G.E. and the RCA Corporation was whether he has the diplomatic skills to mesh the assets and personalities of two major companies. 'Great Strategic Sense' ''Diplomacy?'' remarked the 50-year-old Mr. Welch today. ''I don't think anybody could recall a more diplomatic merger.'' He added: ''This was not a takeover. This is a merger that makes great strategic sense to both sides.''

The banners had been hung in the post gymnasium and the division band was prepared to play at a ceremony welcoming 250 members of the 101st Airborne back from almost six months in Sinai. But when Col. John P. Herring went before a gathering of about 200 people at 9 this morning, the banners were down and the band instruments still in their cases. His message was grim. Yes, he told them, a plane that crashed in Gander, Newfoundland, was the one that had been chartered to bring their husbands, fathers, fiances and friends home.

An article in Business Day yesterday about the pressure on Texaco Inc. to seek an out-of-court settlement with the Pennzoil Company incorrectly described Texaco's ability to pay a large bill from Saudi Arabia. The company has adequate funds to make the payment.

IT used to be that music in New York around Christmastime amounted to a ''Messiah'' or two, plus various events - mostly carols and the like - in the churches. Times have changed. The next few weeks will see some 200 events in the metropolitan area devoted to Christmas music or to musical celebrations of Christmas. That includes the usual Bach and the midnight Yuletide concerts that have become such a fixture of musical life in this city's Christmas.

Friday THE SOUNDS OF SPAIN He is known only as Sabicas, but when he plays guitar he is known as a master of flamenco, the tremulous, darting music of the Spanish gypsies. Tonight, Sabicas offers one of his rare New York performances, at Town Hall, 123 West 43d Street, where he gave the first solo flamenco guitar recital in the United States 37 years ago. Since then, he has played in concert halls around the world and recorded more than 50 albums. Although Sabicas, who is 68 years old, lives in New York City, he has not given a concert here in more than two years. Tickets are $11.50 and $14.50. Information: 362-0290.

A chartered jetliner crashed on takeoff at the international airport here today, killing all 258 people reported aboard, all but eight of them American soldiers headed home for Christmas. The soldiers were returning to Fort Campbell, Ky., from Cairo by way of Cologne, West Germany, after a six-month tour of duty with the international peacekeeping force in the Sinai Peninsula. The other eight dead were believed to be crew members. American and Canadian officials said there were no preliminary indications of sabotage.

Oppenheimer & Company, investment bankers and brokers, is expected to announce as early as today that discussions are under way with its parent, Mercantile Holdings Ltd., London, concerning the purchase of Oppenheimer by its officers, according to sources close to both companies. While Oppenheimer officials steadfastly refused to discuss the matter yesterday, sources in Wall Street said they expected the purchase price to be considerably more than the $162.5 million Mercantile paid for Oppenheimer in August 1982. ''Nevertheless, if the discussions prove fruitful, I'm sure both parties will be very happy to go their separate ways,'' said Michael Lipper, president of the Lipper Analytical Securities Corporation. ''The marriage was never a happy one because of the wide cultural and philosophical gulfs between them.''

A picture caption in The Living Section on Wednesday describing a culinary gift for Christmas misidentified the tea kettle shown. It costs $29.95 and is available in red, black or white at all Conran's stores.