To Restorers, the Lady Is a Trump

--On Marge Meyer’s first day as an ironworker on the Statue of Liberty restoration project in New York, she walked into a room in the monument and saw the name “Margie” that a tourist had once scrawled in chalk across an iron bar. “I got goose bumps when I saw that,” recalled the New York woman. “It’s like she (the statue) was welcoming me, like she was waiting for me to come and help her.” With the statue’s gala July 4, 1986, centennial celebration now only 365 days away, many of the 120 American and French workers agree that working on the $65-million project is not just another job. “I know in my head she’s only steel but in some ways you feel like she’s real,” said Meyer, 43, an ironworker for 16 years. Jean Wiart, 32, who heads the 10-man French team hired to do the delicate copper embossing on Liberty’s new torch and flame, agrees. “The French did not come here for the money,” he said. “It was for the job to do because the restoration of the Statue of Liberty is the most important monument all over the world.”

--A judge ruled that New Jersey--not California--should be the legal battleground for the dispute between former auto maker John Z. DeLorean, 60, and his ex-wife, who are contesting the division of $10 million in property and the custody of their two children. New Jersey Judge Michael R. Imbriani ruled also that the California divorce decree granted in April to Cristina Ferrare DeLorean Thomopolous, 35, who married television executive Anthony Thomopolous shortly thereafter, is void in New Jersey.

--Undersea explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau will seek $5 million in private donations to support a proposed Cousteau Ocean Center in Norfolk, Va. The City Council will decide in January whether to approve the center after reviewing the results of a six-month fund-raising drive. Mayor Joseph A. Leafe told council members that Cousteau’s willingness to seek $3 million in national corporate support and $2 million in private contributions would “considerably strengthen the project and make it one I am prepared to embrace.”

--It’s become a not quite annual Fourth of July custom, beginning in 1972, and again Willie Nelson will throw his holiday picnic concert in Austin, Tex.--with more than 20 musicians and groups taking the stage. Joining the bandannaed singer will be Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, Neil Young, Ray Wiley Hubbard, June Carter Cash, David Allen Coe and Jessi Colter, among others. Last year, 30,000 persons turned out for the event, and organizers predicted a similar throng this year.