Luke Perry died today. He was 52 and had suffered a massive stroke. I didn’t imagine celebrity news being a big part of this site when I started writing here. But for all his heartthrob glamor and Hollywood fame, he did seem to remain his Ohio realness.

At the risk of losing my Gen X card, I am pretty sure I never watched one complete episode of Beverly Hills 90210. That said, I always liked him in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. (When you’re in a movie surrounded by vampires and your character’s name is Pike, I’m in). And, of course, I was aware he was born in Mansfield and spent his teen years in Fredericktown. In his New York Times obit they quoted an old Cleveland Plain Dealer article where he said:

“Growing up in the Midwest, people don’t drive Porsches and Ferraris and Maseratis. People drive Ford and Chevy and Dodge. A lot of times people forget what makes sense to them and what got them where they were, and they want to have all this new stuff. And I think they go a little astray there.”

After news broke of his death, his Ohio connections—known and lesser known—came out. First I saw the evidence of his often-noted Cincinnati Reds fandom.

The most surprising connection was unveiled in the Instagram feed of Ohio senator, potential presidential candidate, and husband to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Connie Schultz, Sherrod Brown. It was there that he noted Perry had campaigned for him and, more surprisingly, that Brown’s father was the doctor who delivered Luke Perry!

Learning this news made my one Luke Perry story make a little more sense. It was 2012 and, for a presidential election rally, Bruce Springsteen was going to appear on the Ohio State University Oval. Obama wasn’t going to be there, but Bruce was introduced by past Ohio senator, astronaut, and Right Stuff-haver John Glenn. (Springsteen would thank him with a few bars of The Byrds’ “Hey Mr. Spaceman.”) In the midst of all the young Democrats and graying Springsteen fans there that day, I saw a familiar face. He may have had a Reds cap on and perhaps he was passing out literature. We shook hands as he shouldered past and, for that afternoon, the guy who used to cause riots when he appeared at shopping malls was just Luke Perry, Ohioan, weaving through the people with a smile on his face.

Banner photo still from the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer.