Remembering that giant step Where were you when man first walked on the moon? We asked five public figures with Minnesota roots to share their memories:

"I happened to be in Oklahoma with my son, visiting family. The local folks there were convinced that it was just a well-done TV special, bought at the expense of taxpayers and that the real money for the moon program had been appropriated by LBJ. The neighbors were adamant that it was a hoax and my 9-year-old was inclined to argue with them.

"One of the people I was visiting at that time worked for the circus and we got into this whole discussion about how much more difficult it was now going to be to awe the audience. The idea of doing an aerial act wasn't quite so spectacular anymore."

Comedian/writer Dudley Riggs, founder of Brave New Workshop

"I was with friends in California, coming down from the mountains where we had had a camping trip. We raced home, going as quickly as we could, in order to see things happening in outer space. I remember walking into my house where my parents had it on, and seeing those pictures that were so far away, yet looked so great. I think we were all mesmerized."

KARE anchor Diana Pierce

"Men may have been walking on the moon, but we were looking at how to get a first down. I know it's selfish, but all of our focus was on football. It had to be. That was a year that a lot of things were happening socially, but when you're a quarterback, you have a certain responsibility. Who was the first guy who walked on the moon? Was he a halfback or a split end? Neil Armstrong? Of course. I got to meet him a few years later at a charity event. Of course, I would have never had that opportunity if we hadn't done what we did with the Vikings." Joe Kapp, who quarterbacked the Vikings in 1969 to their first Super Bowl

"It was my birthday. I remember gazing up in the skies in Bangalore, trying to imagine what it was like to be the man on the moon. Most of India was pretty isolated in those days. We didn't have a television. We sat outside on the terrace and listened to BBC on a shortwave radio. We didn't have anything to look at. We had to use our imagination. I remember everybody being totally absorbed."

PBS "NewsHour" correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro

"It was the summer after my freshman year in college and I was in Europe working as a baseball coach. I happened to be in Amsterdam that day and watched the landing in a bar. People were shaking my hand just because I was an American. Their reaction wasn't much different from the ones in the rest of the Western world. It was just unbelievable that this was happening."

Astronaut George (Pinky) Nelson

NEAL JUSTIN