My wife bought me a really nifty Christmas gift that gets better with each passing day.

Her choice of a thick, down-lined barn jacket has proven to be a wise one with temperatures plummeting each night to levels that could flash freeze the fry bins at the Original Hot Dog Shop.

But when I stare at myself in the mirror each morning after donning the coat, I realize that it's more than just a warm winter garment; this coat could be the start of a new career in broadcast journalism.

With a dark complexion and a thick outergarment, I could join the shivering, illustrious ranks of African-American TV reporters in Pittsburgh who seem permanently relegated to the outdoors.

It's a trend many of us noticed back when WPXI hired Yolanda Hawkins, a tiny, pixieish black woman who seemed less suited for sub-zero duty than an Orlando Beach Hooters waitress. Yolanda, however, was no shrinking violet, and we half-winced, half-cheered her on as she dutifully covered late-night car accidents, house fires and other events in weather that could chill even Dick Cheney's heart.

She was not the first black TV journalist in Pittsburgh to take the concept of cold chillin' to its most literal interpretation.

Back in the 1970s, WTAE's Cathy Milton braved conditions that would have sent Sir Edmund Hillary screaming for his long johns. And then there's reporter and living-legend Dee Thompson, who has been on the outside longer than the homeless guys camped out under the Clemente Bridge.

Today, that brave, teeth-chattering mantel is sustained by reporters like KDKA's Bob Allen, who, someone seems to think, looks best framed by a wash of snowflakes or flashing emergency lights.

By now, after many years of exposure to our region's harshest conditions, you'd think the local networks would call these intrepid field Negroes, so to speak, in from the cold. They've all, undoubtedly, developed an intimacy with atmospheric conditions that would shame any trained meteorologist, which makes them perfect candidates to be TV weather forecasters.

But I'm not holding my frigid breath waiting for that to happen.

For that job, they'd need a lot more than just a thick winter coat. They'd need to become a tiny, pixieish white woman, a species of being that, in our town, always seems to be working indoors.