![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777201028_943_image.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nDean Lodge has been a fixture in Long Beach for more than two decades, a friendly face who, his many clients and friends say,\u00a0is as kind a person as he is a reliable delivery driver.<\/p>\n
Now, after 37 years with UPS \u2014 including 26 spent serving as a delivery driver in the Long Beach community \u2014 Lodge, 62, has retired from the job he considers one of\u00a0“the best things in my life.”<\/p>\n
Lodge, of Elmont, celebrated his recent retirement on Saturday with family and friends at Mareya, a Mexican restaurant in the heart of Long Beach.<\/p>\n
“He’s the best. He’s so thoughtful. He knows all of his customers individually,” said Sarah Monaghan, of Long Beach. “I feel like my friend is retiring, not my UPS guy.”<\/p>\n
Lodge grew up in Jamaica and moved with his family to New York in 1988. On June 12, 1989, he started working for UPS, doing a route on the West Side of Manhattan.<\/p>\n
In 2000, he transferred from Manhattan to Long Beach, a move he credits with his long career with UPS.<\/p>\n
“If I didn’t move out here, maybe I wouldn’t have been at UPS so long,” he said. But he now counts the Long Beach community as one of “the best things that ever happened to me.”<\/p>\n
“They’re the ones that keep me going,” Lodge said.<\/p>\n
Dean Lodge greeting friends from his route at his retirement party Saturday at Mareya restaurant in Long Beach. Credit: Howard Simmons<\/p>\n
Long Beach resident Suzanne St. Jacques said Lodge is a “neighborhood icon” who always has a smile on his face.<\/p>\n
“He drives very cautiously, a big truck down a very narrow block,” St. Jacques said. “He’s aware that there’s kids. \u2026 He knows the block. He knows us.”<\/p>\n
Collette Fung, Lodge’s younger sister, said she did not know of his fame in the community before making her trip from her home in Illinois to New York for Saturday’s party.<\/p>\n
“But I’m not surprised, because we’re all social butterflies,” she added, although Lodge was the quietest one of the five siblings.<\/p>\n
Monica Washington, Lodge’s former supervisor at UPS for the last year, said Lodge is “irreplaceable.” He acted as a mentor to younger drivers and like a “big brother” to her, she said.<\/p>\n
Lodge said that when he first considered moving his route to Long Beach, he was warned about stepping into a predominantly white community.<\/p>\n
“I never have a problem out here. These guys\u2026 treat me like their own, like their family,”\u00a0Lodge said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A graphic on a poster celebrated Lodge’s career. Credit: Howard Simmons<\/p>\n
Throughout his career in Long Beach, Lodge has become woven into the fabric of the community. He’s been invited to block parties up and down the State Streets and has been featured in social media posts by local businesses.<\/p>\n
In retirement, Lodge said he plans to take the summer off before returning to work \u2014 this time devoting more energy to a sprinkler and irrigation system business he’s been running on the side for 20 years. And when he’s not working, he can be found watching horses race at Belmont Park.<\/p>\n
But a part of his heart will remain in Long Beach.<\/p>\n
“I’m gonna miss my customers most of all,” Lodge said.<\/p>\n
Alek Lewis covers the towns of Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island for Newsday. He previously worked as a reporter for RiverheadLOCAL, where he received awards from the New York Press Association and the Press Club of Long Island for his reporting on local government and politics. A Riverhead native, he is a graduate of Stony Brook University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dean Lodge has been a fixture in Long Beach for more than two decades, a friendly face who,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132,11145],"class_list":["post-286727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-nassau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}