For years, I’ve wanted to photograph breakfast at Stewart’s, there is a sense of community, pathos, loneliness and connection there, a great stew all mixed into one small convenience store.

I am very fond of Stewart’s, a gas and convenience store chain that fills many of the holes in our rural America. We need them, the government and the economists have driven the young and the factories and companies away to the big cities or other countries.

They employ a lot of local people and feed a lot of local people.

If people want to know why Donald Trump is President, come and spend some time in the rural parts of the country. It will make sense to you.

Stewart’s is an important part of the rural community here, there are very few places to go.

The Big Men In Trucks gather here before work, single mothers on a hard budget bring their children here for breakfast, and older men, mostly retired, gather every morning to gossip and talk to one another.

The men have fun, laughing and kidding each other and the Stewart’s staff. Everyone knows one another of course, this is the fabric of community.

Before I started thinking more about what I was eating, I used to love buying Stewart’s famous peanut butter and butter sandwiches on a Kaiser Roll. Now, that would probably make me ill.

I can’t imagine eating it. But I do like their Tuna on wheat bread, their veggie snacks, and their chicken salad sandwiches.

Stewart’s has a wondrous feel for the community, I think their coffee is better than any restaurant I know, and they always have fresh bananas on hand. They offer a whole display of healthy food.

I stop almost every morning to get a cup of decaf coffee at the Cambridge Stewarts’s, Mary knows me and she is always cheerful and says hello. I always look over to the plastic booths to see the men laughing and kidding each other. Stewart’s welcomes people to come and sit, and it is much appreciated in our town.

There are no nasty looks or time limits. In a sense, Stewart’s is the new town green.

They sell a ton of multi-colored lottery tickets, they are too complex for me, and the people who buy them are full of hope that a ticket will transform their lives.

I think Stewart’s has its thumb right on the pulse of my little town. This morning, I stopped and looked up and saw this elderly gentlemen with a somewhat sorrowful face.

I went in and asked him if I could take his photo outside, and he said sure, and shrugged, I don’ t think he cared one way or another.

I like this photo very much, Stewart’s is always full of people, but it sometimes also conveys a sense of the loneliness and isolation that can bring people out of their homes, especially in rural America, where being alone has a completely different connotation.

A lot of people here bring their families to Stewart’s for dinner.

Stewart’s is proud of its best-selling Sausage eggwich (577 calories) and suggests several ways on its website to burn off its 577 calories.

After you eat a sandwich, they advice: swimming or treading water for 2.1 hours; running for 1.1 hours, bicycling for 1.1 hour, and walking for 2.5 hours on a level firm surface.

There are 248 mg of Cholesterol in an eggwich, 30 grams of total fat, and 36 grams of carbs. I would probably keel over and die if I ate two or three.

The Big Men In Trucks devour the Sausage Eggwiches, they are always running out of them.

I have nothing bad to say about Stewart’s, I am there every day.

People are responsible for themselves, they have the right to eat whatever they wish. I am not here to tell anybody else what to eat.

I twitch about the kids sometimes, but that is not Stewart’s fault. The food is fresh and affordable for people who sometimes can’t afford to go anywhere else. And there are plenty of healthy things to eat there these days if people are so inclined.

Many are not.

Rural poverty is sometimes invisible, but it can be grinding to see.

I asked one of the mothers if she did any of those things Stewart’s recommends to use up those calories, and she laughed. “I work at a Dunkin’ Donuts, she said, “I’m a single mother, I don’t have time to jog with three kids.”

It makes me sad when I see a mother with three children who are sharing an eggwich sandwich among one another for breakfast.

Is it my business? People are always buying additional  eggwich sandwiches in Stewart’s and bringing them to the mothers so the kids won’t be hungry all morning.

Stewarts  reflects us all here in many ways.

It is easy to judge, harder to accept.