If laughter is the best medicine, that’s probably one of the reasons Bonnie Bruce has already celebrated her 86th birthday, for she has had ailments all her life, but she said, “I just love to tell stories. I’ve been a stand-up comedian all my life. I try to make people laugh.”

Bonnie admits to having a weird sense of humor, but she got it honestly — for both parents had the same trait. They, too, loved to tell stories.

What makes her so happy?

“I have a strong religious base that might not show,” she said, acknowledging a fondness for the risque and “sometimes I use terrible language,” which she said kept her from exploding during some very trying times.

Gordon Cotton is an author and historian who lives in Vicksburg.

Laughter, she said, is very therapeutic. She and her daughter, Barbara, “sit here saying our prayers for the day when one of us stumbles and we just die laughing. But the Lord knows, when I do something crazy like that I just say, ‘You made me. I can’t help it. It’s all your fault.’”

She loves family stories.

“My daddy was in his teens when his mother died in Petal, Miss. They lived in a little, unpainted shack on the side of the road where they had the beer and the body in the same room and dinner outside. There were these two old maid aunts who had not spoken to one another in 40 years when they ran into each other at the corner of the house and knocked each other down. One of them said, ‘Lord God, Aggie, I like not to aknowed ya.’”

It’s an account her daddy loved to tell, and even though it was at his mother’s funeral, Bonnie said getting tickled at a funeral is a release of the emotions.

Bonnie grew up in Columbus, one of 10 children. Her dad had been superintendent of education in New August, an elected position that paid $25 a month, “and when I came along he decided he had to find something else,” and he took a position in Columbus.

Her father went to Mississippi College, and her mother, who graduated in elocution from nearby Hillman College, “taught elocution at home,” Bonnie said, feigning a shy, retiring look of utmost propriety. Underneath that countenance, Bonnie said, her mother, who was only 5 feet tall compared to her husband’s 6-foot-5 frame, “was mean enough to put a stick in  her hand and beat the liver to death.”

Bonnie is descended from Scots (her mother was a P’Poole) and Swedes with a bit of royalty thrown in: somebody in the family married an Indian princess — “There were not commoners among the Indian maidens, you know. That’s where I get my high cheekbones.”

Bonnie met her husband, Sonny Bruce, “when we entered the band room door at the same time.” Bonnie played the organ and piano and also the bassoon, “and Sonny was a super tuba player. He had the lips to do it with.”

In high school, Sonny had played football on the national championship team, and after college took a coaching job in Columbus. He worked for the city in the summer, “out there in the hot sun, no shirt on. He said I passed by a lot. I’m sure I did.”

Sonny said she flirted with him, but that’s something she doesn’t remember.

Soon he called and asked for a date. They went out often for two weeks, then she didn’t hear from him, “and I was about to go crazy.” When he saw her on the tennis court, he asked her out again, and three months later they were married.

Sonny spent some time in the service and then coached for 25 years and “loved it so much he would have paid them to let him do it.” Bonnie taught the second grade and later administered a program at Warren Central to fight dyslexia.

The Bruces had two children, David (who is deceased) and Barbara. Bonnie wanted five, but changed her mind because “Sonny did not boil water, and he did not like diapers.” Sonny died unexpectedly in February 1986 when he was superintendent of education for the Vicksburg schools. Bonnie retired the following June.

Bonnie, daughter Barbara and sister-in-law Betty Jo travel some. Bonnie said she doesn’t like to travel, “but I like what I see when I get there. I have to pack. I can’t travel light. We devastate ourselves at Applebee’s. We get the triple chocolate meltdown. It’s just nasty it’s so good.”

Another one of her joys is playing the piano, which she does every week at the Lions Club. She has arthritis, so “it’s not that great. When I’m away and come back, they tell me how much they missed me. You know, my ego needs that. I’ve developed a terrific ego in my old age. I don’t know if I had it and didn’t know it, or if I’ve just developed it. I probably had to develop it to sustain myself against Sonny.”

Bonnie also likes to sew and has always made all of her clothes. Her mother also sewed and, when Bonnie was little, one of her favorite garments was a red hand-me-down coat that had a big moth hole in it, but her mother made a gusset to cover it and put one on the other side to match. Her mother was innovative, and so is Bonnie for she does some original designs.

“I like to sew. I can figure out my problems while I’m sewing,” she said. “I told Barbara I don’t want to work or do anything anymore but play the piano and sew.”

And she might add that she’ll keep laughing.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I can get tickled when it is so bad,” she said. “It’s like insanity. Getting old is better than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick. Sonny and I used to look for the things we could laugh about.”

Bonnie has exercised since she was 32 and now works out for 30 minutes three times a week. She watches her health, and she said recently she vowed not to mention illness all day, “and I lasted until noon. When I travel, I have to pack a bushel basket of pills. They’re awful, but each one has its job. I don’t know how they know where to go.”

“I’m interested in what I’m doing, interested in living. I’m not ready to go yet,” she said, “and if my picture comes out in the paper on Sunday and I’ve died on Saturday, I’m gonna come back and haunt you!”

She’s still here, Bonnie said, because “if you get an ailment and you take good care of it, you’ll live a long time.”