Actually, going further with this, if you grab your dbh handle from a function in the 'main' part of the module, you can create a so-called singleton-like system, thus instead of:

sub george_connect {
    return DBI->connect('yada yada');
}
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you can do:

my $dbh;
sub george_connect {
    if ( !$dbh ) {
       $dbh = DBI->connect('yada yada');
    }
    return $dbh;
}
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which maintains a handle one created, but never tried to reconnect it again.

-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
"I can see my house from here!"
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important