I'm partial to INIT blocks myself

Noooooooooooo! Please please please don't do that! It will break if you put the code using the INIT block in a module and that modules is directly or indirectly required (i.e., loaded after program compile-time). INITs are not executed right after the file in which it was found is done compiling. It's executed after the program file is done compiling. INIT is used when you need to do something delay execution of something to before program run-time.

Personally I go with adding a BEGIN before the bare block, thus avoiding to retype the variable name.

BEGIN {
  my $memory = 'a';

  sub test {
    print "Value of static var is ", $memory++, "\n";
  }
}
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Update: added clarification.

ihb