idle processes - pg_recvbuf

Hello list,

I am rather new to JDBC programming with postgresql (making the switch
from PhP/MySQL). I recently created a web application for learning
JDBC/postgresql for an online links database (how's that for reinventing
the wheel?)

Anyway, I am noticing some odd problems, every now and then I see the
following message on my server:

DEBUG: pq_recvbuf: unexpected EOF on client connection

Searching google for this doesn't provide many answers. Some posts on the
postgres lists, but no concrete answers. Hopefully this time...

I also see an increasing number of idle connection when doing:

ps -deaf | grep postgres

At the moment I have 10 idle processes.

I am using postgresql version 7.2.2 and tomcat 4.1.12 with Java 1.4.1 on
SuSE 7.3. My pgjdbc2.jar is dated Sept. 24th, no idea on the version
number.

I designed a database utilities class so I could have all my queries in
one spot. I think this is the culprit, but I am not sure. Here is part
of the code:

import blah blah blah;

public class DBUtils extends HttpServlet {
private java.sql.Connection connection;
private PrintWriter out;

public DBUtils (HttpServletResponse response) {
try {
out = response.getWriter();

Class.forName("org.postgresql.Driver").netInstance();
connection = DriverManager.getConnection(
"jdbc:postgresql://localhost/mydb", "me", "mypass");

} catch (SQLException sqle) and so on
}

public void finalize() throws java.lang.Throwable {
try {
connection.close();
} catch (SQLException sqle) {
out.println("Error closing connection" + sqle);
}
}

public ArrayList getLinks () {
// query db, return array
}
}

It would seem that my finalize routine is being called most of the time,
but not all of the time. Do other users have a better way of doing this?
I want to keep all my query stuff seperate from the presentation layer,
but I also want to close every connection cleanly. This is coming from
normal use (e.g. I didn't kill the browser in the middle of a query or
something).

Thanks in advance,

Josh Trutwin
http://trutwins.homeip.net