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What do we do with our messy heroes? When they leave this earth, should we muddy the flow of praise by pointing out the asterisks? Must we cement their memory upon their most pernicious moments? Can we allow room for nuance?

The question of Hulk Hogan's legacy finds a fitting home in Florida, full of people reckoning with misdeeds. Here at the end of the world, we lay claim to a man who vacillated between good guy and bad, between face and heel. Drunk on the sun and second chances, we embraced our parasocial relationship with a pop culture phenomenon wrapped in trappings of the quintessential Florida Man.

Maybe that's why, after all his international fame and folly, Hogan continued to call the state home until his last breath.

Hogan, who died Thursday at 71, found a willing audience in Tampa Bay where fans poured out of his beach bars, posed with his statue in Clearwater, stopped him on the street. In a community often starved for traditional celebrity clout -- sorry, but it's true -- Hogan was the area's most prolific star. He transformed and transcended the world of wrestling to become our gaudy, loudmouthed TV uncle who made waves at Thanksgiving but was always invited back to dinner.

Some fans will remember Hogan as a superhero in tight trunks with 24-inch pythons who could defeat an enemy with an atomic leg drop. They'll remember his fights with Andre the Giant and the Rock, his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, his star turns in their favorite 1980s and 90s movies. A generation of millennials will know him via the reality show that exposed his family to new depths of personal scrutiny. In the hazy aftermath of his death, some will dig up old selfies and memorabilia and feather boa Halloween costumes immortalized in yellowing photo albums.

Others, of course, will head straight to the less savory elements of his lore, indiscretions that cannot be overlooked. They'll mock his salacious, secretly recorded sex tape with the wife of Bubba The Love Sponge Clem, the infamous DJ and Hogan's former best friend; Hogan won millions in a showstopping legal battle with media giant Gawker. They'll rightfully decry Hogan's racist rant caught on video and resulting in a WWE suspension and tearful apology. They'll point to his most recent foray into the arms of the MAGA movement, ever welcoming to a cadre of canceled celebrities.

As his own wrestling theme song went, Hogan was a "real American." He was a cypher for the trajectory of a country nursed on fame and weaned on the fallout, a once proud symbol of charisma, power and athletic success reduced to a sclerotic news cycle punchline.

There's a third entry into reckoning with Hulkamania, and it belongs solely to Tampa Bay. Most of us longtime denizens have a story, an encounter, an unforgettable sighting to share about our hometown Terry Bollea.

Here's mine: He walked into the music store where I worked in Countryside Mall in Clearwater when I was 19 in 2002. There was no mistaking the Hulkster strolling around the suburban shopping center on a sleepy weekday, a blond, barrel-chested apparition, 6 feet and 8 inches of rawhide tan topped with a signature bandana.

A customer approached. "I just want to shake your hand," he said. Hogan, per the social contract he created for himself, obliged and thanked the man by calling him "brother." From behind the register, I watched the show play out, starry-eyed. A son of Florida, reliably doing his job on the stage that lifted him up.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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