it is a scoping issues, mod_perl is funny about such things for persistent db connections and whatnot. To overcome this and have a somewhat global variable be re-assigned with each page load you will need to scope your variable assignment.

use vars qw($var1 $var2 $var3);
{
    $var1 = 'One';
    $var2 = 'Two';
    $var3 = 'Three';
}
[download]

or:

use vars qw($var1 $var2 $var3);
initialize();
sub initialize {
    $var1 = 'One';
    $var2 = 'Two';
    $var3 = 'Three';
}
[download]

Have to scope the assignment somehow to tell mod_perl you want to re-assign and not keep persistent.