Open All FIles in a Directory: How can I tell emacs to do this?

[Dan Anderson]

Often times when I'm coding I'll want to load all files in a particular
directory into a buffer.  Right now I have to do:

emacs ./file1

Then for each other file
C-x C-f filename

Is there something I can put in my .emacs file to tell emacs that when I
type a directory name under open file that all files in that directory
should be loaded, or even better, a command or set of keys I can press
to automatically load all files in a directory?

Thanks in advance,

-Dan