Like Old Times

The other day at work I was approached by a second grader named Terrell. Terrell has some respect issues, and some anger issues, but we're working on it.
One of the areas where he gets in trouble sometimes is the football field. He loves football, and he's good at it, but he's working on the whole sportsmanship thing. He gets frustrated easily, which leads to yelling, obscenity, pushing and shoving, general fighting. He has, however, made progress since he enrolled, and I have hopes for him to one day go through an afternoon on the playground without sitting in time out.
For whatever reason, Terrell likes me. At first I couldn't believe this. I am constantly putting him in time out or lecturing him, but still he seeks me out on the playground. He gets excited when I throw the ball to him. If I make a joke, he slaps me on the back and laughs and goes, "Yeah Mr. E! HA! Good one!" This is a little awkward, but cool.
The other day I was explaining to him why I couldn't go get the football from the other side of the fence for the second time in one day, when we had the following interaction.
"You know, Mr. E., you kind of talk like old times."
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
So he repeated what I had said to him just a minute before, annunciating absurdly for effect--a black person trying to sound like a goofy white nerd.
"'Are - You - All - Right? What - Is - The - Matter?' See, like old times."