On Feb 4, 10:16*am, Brooklyn1 <Gravesend1> wrote:
> On Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:09:43 -0600, Lou Decruss
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> >On Thu, 3 Feb 2011 17:33:55 -0800 (PST), spamtrap1888
> > wrote:
>
> >>On Feb 3, 6:27 am, Lou Decruss > wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 17:24:52 -0500, "Nancy Young"
>
> >>> > wrote:
> >>> >Lou Decruss wrote:
>
> >>> >> I got a new job just as I started that project so it's on the back
> >>> >> burner along with 100 other fun projects.
>
> >>> >A different new job?
>
> >>> No. The same one I started last summer just after I put the peppers
> >>> in brine.
>
> >>> >> I don't even have time to
> >>> >> read usenet much anymore and I'm posting now while I'm thawing out
> >>> >> from cleaning up 20 inches of snow. I'm about a third of the way
> >>> >> done. Pita bread pizzas tonight if I still have any energy.
>
> >>> >Sorry about all that snow. It's gotten tiresome, though we got
> >>> >a break this time.
>
> >>> Yeah. I know you folks out east have had a tough year.
>
> >>> The snow in this picture is like 10% of what I had to move yesterday.
> >>> I've got the cars to the end of the driveway but the street is still
> >>> blocked. I was too tired to cook last night so it was leftovers.
>
> >>>http://i53.tinypic.com/dvsmwx.jpg
>
> >>Years ago I tried to get a job where I only had to show up ten months
> >>a year, but it was no-go.
>
> >That would be construction but there ain't much of that going on now.
> >When I worked construction I had very little time off in the winter
> >but I didn't want it. *If I could go back in time I'd take more hours
> >and side jobs and save rather than live high-on-the hog. *I'd be able
> >to enjoy middle age rather than doing what i'm doing now.
>
> >Lou * * * *
>
> Isn't living "HIGH-on-the-hog" a euphemism for snorting cocaine?

It's a euphemism for eating pork chops and ham instead of pigs feet
and sowbelly.

From phrases.org.uk

This is the earliest printed form of the phrase that I have come
across - from the New York Times, March 1920:

Southern laborers who are "eating too high up on the hog" (pork
chops and ham) and American housewives who "eat too far back on the
beef" (porterhouse and round steak) are to blame for the continued
high cost of living, the American Institute of Meat Packers announced
today.

'High off the hog' has a similar pedigree, i.e. mid 20th century USA.
For example, the San Francisco paper the Call-Bulletin, May 1946:

I have to do my shopping in the black market because we can't eat
as high off the hog as Roosevelt and Ickes and Joe Davis and all those
millionaire friends of the common man.