couldn't go very far with a walker, though he was still using a walker at home in March of 2023, when he did a long interview with Dutch paper De Volkskrant that I posted about in that very long topic in the Lounge, reply 102.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181674319#post102
There's a photo with the article - https://archive.ph/Ahdqt - where he's standing without a walker, but he's leaning on a Wurlitzer jukebox. A photo in another magazine about the same time showed him standing outdoors, but leaning on a guitar used like a cane.
The last few years have to have been so difficult for him and his family.
The journalist who wrote that article for De Volkskrant wrote a very touching obituary for today's paper. I'll post about it later.
Editing because I want to add that most of his life had been very successful and happy, as i'd pointed out in reply 12 in the LBN thread:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143500597#post12
Part of what I wrote there:
Up until he developed ALS, he'd had a very lucky and successful life - including a successful 56-year marriage to his childhood sweetheart, whom he'd fallen in love with in his early teens. Two great kids, who were also there for him as he battled ALS. Long string of hits in the Netherlands, in addition to the worldwide hits. Very much a rock god there, idolized so much that when he was in his 30s, in the mid-1980s, he won some teen magazine's readers' poll for sexiest musician (he said the kids needed to find younger idols). Healthy and athletic enough to run marathons. Won European guitar awards. Launched or salvaged the careers of some other artists, in addition to founding Golden Earring and keeping them together all those years. I've never run across any statement from anyone who didn't like and admire him.
But then he had a 5-year nightmare fighting ALS.
= new reply since forum marked as read