ISO: Vertical, multi-level menu with active state

Hi there. I need a very simple (aesthetically) vertical menu. At first glance it would just be a list of links. Upon clicking a link it would load a category main page and open a submenu. If the person clicked on one of the submenu links it will open that page *and* show the link corresponding as active (bold). The biggest problem is I would like the menu to be a php include so that whenever the the menu has to be updated, we don't have to go through every single to do it. Since the menu will reload when it goes to a new page I assume a cookie will have to be involved in this... or something similar.

I'm trying for a menu that works identically to this one http://groomelite.com/portal/index.php

This person apparently used a DD script and some home modification a few years aback to achieve the effect:
http://www.codingforums.com/archive

Could anyone possibly point me in the right direction?

Thanks!!

ACC