Haven’t seen a car with a choke for a long time.
We had a 1954 Chevy pickup with a choke. That vehicle also featured a starter on the floor next to the accelerator and a six-volt battery.
children could hit themselves with the balls
That reminds me of something from childhood, broadcast in all innocence by the BBC’ children’s department, that today’s youngsters would understand very differently:
https://youtu.be/eGPIkjI1xNc
That was where I had to stick the screwdriver, right?
I wonder how many kids today would understand how much I miss diving boards in hotel pools. Or any pool for that matter. There are still some out there, but in California at least they’re pretty much extinct.
“Cool, I get next Thursday off from work for Memorial Day”
“The post office is closed on Tuesday for Veterans Day”
“There’s a big sale on Wednesday for Washington’s Birthday”
Most definitely used a choke on a car. But it has been forever of course.
Chokes persist on some internal combustion engines. Boat outboard motors, chainsaws, brush cutters, for example.
I remember my grandparents had a car with a fat cord running across the back of the front seat. Apparently called a “robe rail” for hanging your coats on and such.
I once ended up retrofitting a '65 Rambler with a manual choke because no matter what I tried — including tearing down, cleaning and rebuilding the carburetor — I couldn’t get the automatic choke to work. Not good in a Montana winter.
The only vehicle I’ve ever had with a choke was my Kynast moped I had with fifteen. Never had to use it, even in cold weather. But it was a good spare if your bowden cable for gas broke: you could shorten the cable, attach it to the choke lever and accelerate with your thumb.
(rereading this, bowden cables and mopeds are other things that younger people wouldn’t understand…)
Oh yeah. My John Deere zero turn has a choke. But as far as cars I wonder if any still come with one? Can’t imagine they do.
“Always buy sheets and towels in January, that’s when they have the white sales.” They wouldn’t be on sale the rest of the year. [ETA: that is, you could buy them any time of year; but they’d be full price except in January.]
And on my tractors. But then, my tractors are almost as old as I am, and date to the late 50’s. I don’t know whether new tractors use chokes. Most of them are diesels.
My first car, a '68 VW Beetle had a choke but it was automatic. You set it by depressing the accelerator to the floor once before turning the key then as the engine ran, power to a bimetallic strip would make it let the butterfly open completely.
The 36hp engines had a manual choke but the 40, introduced circa 1960, and on was automatic.
Had a '76 pick-up that I put a manual choke on. My chainsaw and weed eater have manual chokes.
Cars have been fuel-injected for decades, so no choke. A choke is a movable plate that strangles the air flow into the engine a bit, causing it to suck in more fuel than usual during a cold start. With fuel injection, the only way to get extra fuel is to command the computer to do so, meaning a choke plate no longer serves a purpose.
Cars from before I was born had a choke pull-knob on the dashboard. I grew up with carbureted cars that had a semi-automatic choke mechanism: instead of pulling a knob on the dashboard, you pushed the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor once to set the choke and squirt a bit of extra fuel into the intake with the accelerator pump. Once the engine started, the choke would automatically be eased off as the engine warmed up and you worked the accelerator pedal.
I vaguely remember using choke on a tractor (not very well - I was about 12 and had no idea what I was doing)
Lawn Darts (Jarts) was a great game for kids! I used to play it all the time with my friends [RIP] and siblings [RIP].
I wasn’t a very good aim, though.
My dad’s parents were born in Calabria, Italy. My grandma came to the US as a child and my grandpa as a tween. I remember everyone - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins sitting around the table after a big meal (ALWAYS spaghetti or spaghett as my grandpa pronounced it) and they would be talking about “The Old Country”. As a kid I was perplexed, I had no idea what this meant. An old country? 
I’m guessing no one is talking about an Old Country anymore.
Huh. TIL that Memorial Day has not always been on a Monday, and has only been so since 1971. I turned 16 that year, so it’s not like I was too young to notice. But I didn’t.