Pain and fear and joy all wrapped up in a stone

Here's a game I used to play as a kid which strikes me as fairly stupid today:

My friends and I would gather handfuls of stones, ideally a dozen or more in both hands, and stand back-to-back-to-back in an open area. A beach was ideal, but a gravel driveway, a lawn or field adjacent to an ornamental bed of stones, or any similar location would do. 

We would then countdown backward from ten as if we were launching a rocket, and at zero, we would shout "Blast off!" Then we would throw the stones into the air as high as possible and run as fast as possible, trying to escape the impact zone before the stones returned to Earth. 

Your success in avoiding being struck by stones was highly dependent on the trajectory of your friend's throw. If he managed a nearly vertical launch, your escape was all but assured. But if one or more of your co-conspirators launched his stones at an angle or sprayed them in an arc, escape was a 50/50 proposition at best.  

Those stones hurt like hell when they struck our heads. 

It was so fun.

The one modification to the game that we wanted to make but never did was the painting of the stones so that each person could be assigned a specific color. Then we could've determined whose stones hit which person and kept some kind of score.

Instead, we accused our friends of bad throws based upon a complex formula involving who we hated the most at the moment, who looked the most guilty, and who was the easiest to unjustly persecute. 

I know it all sounds stupid and dangerous and tragically un-fun, but it was a joyous game filled with laughter, fear, pain, hilarity, suspense, and high stakes. 

It was a stupid, stupid game, but rarely have I had so much fun.