Two mail carriers with a combined 53 years of experience retired from Suffolk’s Main Street Post Office this week.

Nancy Pruden and Stephen Pesci reminisced about their years during a party Thursday morning.

Pesci applied for the job as carrier after doing a few odd jobs following his Army service. He carried the mail for 18 years before deciding to retire.

“I enjoyed the job, and I loved my customers,” he said. “It was an experience.”

Pesci initially filled in for other carriers on their routes until he got assigned to a regular route, covering Wilroy Road and part of Nansemond Parkway. He remembered being bitten by a Rottweiler once on his upper thigh.

Pesci said he plans to “take it easy” in his retirement and travel to Texas this spring.

Pruden said she started working at the post office 35 years ago, because her mother and brother were working there.

“It was just like a family thing,” she said.

Pruden also said her favorite thing about the job was the customers. She spent almost the entire time on the same rural route near the city’s border with North Carolina.

“I’ve gone to their weddings; I’ve gone to their funerals; I’ve picked up their dogs when they’re too far away from home.”

Pruden has her own experiences with animals on the job, which included being bitten by a toothless Chihuahua and encountering an emu on the loose.

Having joined the postal service because of her family, Pruden found a new definition of family, she said.

“I’m really going to miss my co-workers, because I’ve spent a lot of time with them, and they’re like family.”

Pruden plans to travel and volunteer in her retirement.